Alexandra doctor immortalised by fellowship
Alexandra Health Clinic’s former medical director has been immortalised by a fellowship aimed at supporting young doctors from poor backgrounds in both the US and South Africa.
The Dr Thabo Mnisi Fellowship Programme, worth $50 000 a year, is aimed at supporting students from low-income families from the United States and South Africa on full medical scholarships in Cuba to come back and serve their communities on graduating.
Dr Mnisi, who died last year of cancer, had gone into exile in 1977 and later specialised in surgery in Cuba. He returned to South Africa in 1992 and, despite having a wide range of career options, he opted to work in the Alexandra Clinic.
‘We are aiming to use the fellowship to support medical graduates on their return home to practice in medically underserved communities, both the United States and South Africa,’ said Gail Reed, International Director of Medical Education Cooperation with Cuba (MEDICC), a non-governmental organisation based in the USA.
‘Some people are surprised that the fellowship will also benefit US students, but we must remember that there are 47 million people without health care in the USA, and many of the students themselves come from families too poor to afford the high cost of medical insurance, let alone costs of the medical licensing exam,’ said Reed.
Reed said the fellowship had been named after Mnisi as ‘there could be no better example for young South African and US medical graduates to follow’.
‘He was a brilliant man, who had a wide variety of choices available to him in a free South Africa but he chose to return home, to his community of Alexandra, where he knew people needed his medical practice and his skills,’ said Reed.
Before his death, Mnisi said in an interview with MEDICC that his first contact with the Alexandra clinic had been as a patient after he was admitted with cerebral malaria. After his recovery, Mnisi decided to work at the clinic which was experiences serious staff shortages.
‘I made the decision to come back to Alex, to my community, to inject some of my experience from abroad – and especially from Cuba – into this community clinic, to restructure it in line with the needs of the community,’ said Mnisi.
‘I think that before you are a doctor, you must be a human being, and be sensitive to people’s problems. But not only that, whatever your class or profession, you must do something about [these problems].’
Speaking on behalf of Dr. Mnisi’s family, Lethabo Setshedi noted: ‘We are pleased to see that the values and example represented by Thabo are becoming a larger living legacy with this fellowship, and we hope that everything is done to do justice to his memory.’ ‘ Health-e News Service.
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