GEORGE NEWS - A security guard who has been working at Cancer Care Oncology in Gloucester Avenue for about three and a half years is quietly doing his bit to lighten the load a little for patients who face the daunting path of cancer.
Vuyisanani (Vuyo) Mlotywa firmly, but diplomatically, guards Cancer Care’s designated parking area against illegal parking so that patients don’t need to fret over a little detail like getting a parking bay close to the treatment facility.
A client who experienced his friendliness brought him to George Herald’s attention and during our unannounced visit on Tuesday 30 December, he was at his post, neatly dressed and looking after patients’ parked cars, here and there directing drivers who looked like they might need help to safely exit.
He says most people are friendly, but some are not so open and trusting at first. However, they get used to him and some open up as time goes by. “I can tell them their car is safe so they don’t have to worry. Some come for treatment for one week, others for six weeks. Some receive radiation and others chemotherapy. I get to know them.”
Sometimes it’s difficult to control who park there. He says people take chances. “They tell me they’re going to Mediclinic and then to Cancer Care, but then they don’t come here.”
He is happy with his work. It’s his first job where he has stayed for so long. He works for JC Security. He has been posted at Cancer Care since about July 2022. “Before that I worked in a forested area that was dangerous and I had to work night shifts.”
He is mostly on duty at Cancer Care, but is sometimes placed at Mediclinic to relieve at access control at the entrances. “It’s not a hard work. I have a raincoat and an umbrella for rainy days. I can stand under the carport and then just rush out when I see someone needs help with parking.”
A cancer patient who is currently receiving treatment, Jan Viljoen from Ladismith, quips that Mlotywa is “a good organiser” in the parking area.
Mlotywa says his parents taught him important life principles. His dad, who passed away in August, was a pastor of the Zionist Church.
Mlotywa arrived in George as a child in 1999 from the village Engcobo in the Eastern Cape. He was a learner of MM Mateza Primary and Thembalethu High before he did a year-long legal course at Oxbridge. When he could not find a work in that line, he looked for other opportunities and then got his security grades, which opened up doors for him.
He is a husband and father to two children - a baby boy of six months and a girl who is going to Grade R this year.
“I’m happy in George. I never struggled to find a job. But you have to get up and go out there to look for it. It’s not going to come to you.”
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