Industry News

Leadership is excellence

19 December 2008

In Categories: Nursing , Industry News > Patients

LEADERS in hospitals often feel isolated in their management and supervision roles. In spite of the type of strenuous work they do, these leaders are constantly presented with a host of dilemmas and pressures of running, controlling and managing, and growing their organisations. Everyday we read and experience how much South Africa needs to develop a profile of leaders of the future. Leaders that personify the values of ubuntfu needed to not only lead from the front but also to make ours a better place to live – for all.

In the private hospital industry this means bridging the service delivery gap of the greatly desired quality healthcare synonymous with South African private hospitals. Balancing profits and easing access to first-class healthcare can be a mind boggling task for any leader - especially in a contracting global market. Furthermore, the ever-increasing waiting lists in the ailing public sector are forever creating a big yawn between the haves and have nots. 

But how does one increase access to quality healthcare without compromising business imperatives? We all know that what we expect of managers and matrons is increasingly becoming unfair. We expect them to have all the right answers and innovation. Even more interesting, we expect these leaders to come up with all the right questions. In short, they always need to go beyond the call of duty.

The annual Hasa Awards of Excellence, part of the ministerial Health Worker Awards held last November, is just one project to recognise such efforts and determination in unleashing the creative spirit of ubuntfu in our healthcare facilities. Managers across hospitals lead creative ways to ensure the needy but poor also enjoys world-class services – for free. This promotes equity and eases the burden on the public sector, it must be argued.

These compassionate deeds include involvement in local community, selling the good image of the sector and aiding public-private partnerships in the interests of the end users. For the shortlisted private hospitals, the awards are not a marketing plot designed to score brownies with the media but a deliberate process to encourage other hospitals to work with both the community and broader public.

Imagine what the country can achieve if all our hospitals can begin talking about how they can emulate this year's winning project from The Walter Sisulu Paediatric Heart Centre. The centre, through their CEO Lynda Bleazzard, created a foundation to raise funds for needy children with life-threatening heart defects. At the time of the awards the centre had alleviated the waiting lists in our public hospitals significantly and saving 223 young lives - for free. These kids should have never afforded the quality of the treatment they got at the centre. Again, for some of the kids waiting meant loss of life.

Hospitals that excel in excellence need to engage in this kind of conversation. And clearly the experience is not only rich in airing and addressing real issues through awards, but also an enriching lesson in observation from your peers and the public sector.

Hasa also congratulations the nurses and public servants that walk away with honours such as the Marilyn Lahana, Cecilia Makiwane and Alfred Nzo awards. Their tireless toil makes them deserving winners. It is also in order to congratulate the efforts of doctors and other professionals in the industry as represented in the Health Professions Council of SA, Sama and South African Pharmacy Council. I wish all the winners and finalists continued success in 2009.