Mukoni T Ratshitanga and Bongani Siqoko
Apartheid?s architect, Dr Hendrik Verwoerd, would be turning in his grave. The hospital named after him is now headed by a black woman.
Dr Zola Njongwe is chief medical superintendent of Pretoria Academic Hospital ? renamed in April after being HF Verwoed Hospital since the death of the former prime minister. At 44, she speaks of an ?era of romantics? when people went into medicine to help others. Today?s medical students, she says, are acutely aware of other factors like financial rewards. ?Things have changed and that may be a problem.?
Her father was a doctor and her mother a nurse. She decided to follow in her father?s footsteps and studied medicine at the University of Natal. Her two brothers ? both deceased ? chose to abandon their studies at the University of Fort Hare to join the African National Congress in exile.
Her medical career started in 1977 when she took over her father?s surgery at the Kwazulu-Natal village of Matatiele a year after he died. Fours years later she went back to study for a career in community health. As a community health specialist, she does not feel misplaced leading a tertiary hospital. ?Yes, there are specific areas that one is not experienced in. At the same time I have some management experience. But I?m on a learning curve,? she said.
Njongwe speaks little of herself and her achievements. She often uses ?we? instead of ?I?. In October, she intends gathering together political parties, clinics, the local government and communities to put together a referral system to streamline the way clinics refer patients.
The University of Pretoria is also being brought in to help the hospital and four others ? Kalafong, Witbank, Thembisa and Jubilee ? in the creation of an academic complex to give students training and a research service. ?This is a collective vision,? she said.
Njongwe seems to be succeeding in bridging racial and gender problems. ?We accepted we have a problem. There were constant accusations of racism. We started a process of meetings in every section of the hospital. Just talking has helped a lot. Now there are fewer complaints of racism.?
And she has high praise for the gender- sensitive men with whom she works. They treat her with respect ?although there are times you have to shout because you realise a person is relating to you as a woman and not a colleague?.
Patients and staff have been fully integrated, moving away from the old days when ?white nurses treated white patients and black nurses treated black patients?.
Her aim is for the hospital to be able to streamline itself, so that primary health care functions and less sophisticated treatment are assigned elsewhere, and the Pretoria Academic Hospital remains a teaching hospital.