Enabling rural kids to become doctors
‘Some people thought I was joking because they could not believe someone with my background could become a doctor,’ said the quiet 34-year-old from Manguzi, a rural KwaZulu-Natal community on the border with Mozambique.
The eldest of four children, it took focus and huge determination for Ngwenya to rise beyond his childhood poverty and poor schooling.
His father abandoned the family when Ngwenya was young and the only jobs his mother could get were low paying ones as a cleaner or farm worker.
‘I always wanted to be a doctor, but people thought this was just a dream,’ says Ngwenya.
In many ways, it was an impossible dream. At Ngwenya’s school, there were no qualified maths and science teachers. Textbooks were in short supply and ants had eaten away at the few books in the school library.
From Grade 11, Ngwenya worked for a local builder every weekend for R20 a day, making it hard for him to study and he just managed to get a matric exemption.
After matric, Ngwenya worked as a construction worker for three years and tried to save for a better future.
His big break came when a member of his church loaned him the money to register for a BSc at the University of Zululand in 2000.
Ngwenya excelled at studying, collecting seven distinctions including as best student in macrobiology.
‘I realised that it was do-able to use my BSc as a stepping stone to get into medicine,’ says Ngwenya.
While in his first year as a medical student, Ngwenya heard about the Umthombo Youth Development Foundation, a KwaZulu-Natal-based organisation established to help rural children to become health workers.
For the remainder of his medical training, Ngwenya was supported by a bursary from the foundation, which included mentoring and a living allowance.
As pay-back when he graduated, Ngwenya had to work in rural hospitals for the same period of time that he received the bursary.
‘What Umthombo is doing is of great value because indigenous students understand the culture of their patients,’ says Ngwenya. ‘For example, in my community a younger person should not look an elderly person in the eye.’
Umthombo CEO Gavin MacGregor says the organisation ‘ first started in Ngwavuma as Friends of Mosvold Hospital ‘ was launched to address the massive shortage of rural health workers.
‘Research shows that people from rural areas are more likely to work in rural areas. Some rural hospitals have vacancy rates of 60 percent,’ says MacGregor.
‘Of the 1200 doctors who graduate every year, only about 35 end up working in rural areas,’ says MacGregor. ‘There should be a specific allocation at medical students for rural students.’
Since Umthombo was started in 1999, it has supported 36 doctors to graduate ‘ all from rural KwaZulu-Natal. By last year, it was supporting 60 medical students and expects to add another 25 to 30 medical students this year.’
‘This means we will have contributed 90 doctors to work rural health and this will make a big impact in rural hospitals,’ says MacGregor.
It also supports students to study a wide range of other health disciplines such as nursing, physiotherapy and optometry.
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