WITS REVIEW
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laying a pivotal role is the Wits Donald Gordon Medical Centre (WDGMC), South Africa’s first private teaching hospital, of which Wits University is the main shareholder. Some of the country’s top medical practitioners are doing groundbreaking work here.
“We train specialists and sub-specialists in association with state hospitals, and provide training in sub-specialist disciplines that were not available before in South Africa, such as solid organ transplants and geriatric medicine,” says Dr Sue Tager, neurologist and CEO of the WDGMC since 2008. “The training we offer is critical for South Africa.” Dr Tager says they pride themselves on being able to train in areas not always available in the public sector: “Through this approach we have managed to create more opportunities for doctors to further their expertise in this country. We have also been able to attract specialists back from the private sector and overseas (many of them Wits-trained), to develop their field with us.” As a teaching hospital the WDGMC has retained a notable number of doctors and specialists who might have been lost to the training environment, moved to private hospitals that don’t do training, or relocated overseas. Dr Tager explains this directly enhances the quality of health care, as well as the quality of training at Wits and in the public sector environment, adding that there has been an exponential increase in the number of black and women specialists and sub-specialists.
Nurturing nurses “We are also helping to address the nursing crisis in South Africa, and the WDGMC is involved in the training and skills upgrading of nurses in the disciplines we provide.” Salaries are a perennial issue, but Tager says research shows that what nurses want most is training. Dr Sue Tager Photo: WDGMC
The WDGMC partners with a number of state hospitals, including the Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital (Joburg Gen), Helen Joseph and Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital (Bara).
“We believe that to maintain high standards of health care, strong partnerships between universities, public and private hospitals and the state are essential.” She adds that public health care in general is not where it should be and private health care is very expensive: “Across the board, quality health care needs to be available to far more people. Wits and the WDGMC have contributed to more accessible, continuously improving health care and we have maintained a high standard of health sciences education. We are proud of this and we welcome closer collaboration with the National Department of Health.”
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