The secret of Netcare Sunward Park Hospital is right before your eyes because, present on a Tuesday morning, for a video call to share their stroke story, are:
- Hospital manager and former engineer Greg Mokgoatlheng whose desire to serve the community shapes the culture at the hospital.
- Neurovascular surgeon Dr Phila Mpanza, whom Greg headhunted last year to head up Sunward’s neurovascular service.
- Dr Mpanza’s colleague, endovascular neurosugeon Dr Rambelani Khohomela, who is also a consultant at Johannesburg’s megahospitals, Chris Hani Baragwanath and Charlotte Maxeke. His colleagues call him Dr Rambe.
- Sr Lucille Pillay, emergency department unit manager and stroke champion. Nursing is in her blood.
- Matron Gwen Naidoo, nursing service manager and key supporter of the stroke project, along with her deputy, Matron Ravina Jairam.
- In the driver’s seat, Dr Nelson Alves, chief clinical officer at ER Consulting, Africa’s largest a consultative emergency medical services provider in the private sector. Hospitals that oursource emergency care to ER Consulting have won over 40 WSO Angels Awards, including two gold awards for Sunward Park.
- Sharing a screen with Matron Gwen and Lucille, is new principal clinical manager Dr Carla Calldo, also from ER Consulting. She’s the new kid on the block, having only joined Sunward Park this past July.
- Also joining the 10 am call is physician Dr Palesa Portia Mentoro, and Angels consultant Wendy Mandindi who is beaming with pride.
The short version of the Sunward Park story is that last May a revamped cath lab sent hospital manager Greg in search of neurosurgeons who could establish a thrombectomy service and turn Sunward Park into a comprehensive center for stroke. Plus, a multidisciplinary team established last October streamlined the stroke pathway, resulting in faster treatment times, a higher recanalization rate, more lives saved, and two gold awards.
But there’s of course a longer version of the story, and it’s no accident that the people who created it, have shown up to share it.
Men on a mission
He could tell Greg was serious when he came all the way across Johannesburg to meet with Dr Mpanza, Dr Rambe says. Trekking from Boksburg on the East Rand to Baragwanath in Soweto, he was evidently “a man on a mission”.
Greg told the doctors what he had and what he needed, and when they visited Sunward Park shortly afterwards, it was a mission accomplished.
They were amazed by the equipment, Dr Mpanza says. Good equipment combined with a good team equalled better outcomes, so here was the opportunity for better stroke care both he and Dr Rambe strived for. And when they arrived to take up residence at Sunward Park, they received a warm welcome that humbled them, Dr Rambe says.
Dr Rambe realized he wanted to become a surgeon while practising medicine in “the bundu”, in the northeastern corner of Limpopo Province. After qualifying as a neurosurgeon (because he “loved the brain”), he did a subspecialty in neurovascular surgery and became passionate about redressing the want of adequate stroke care. Changing the narative around stroke is now a passion project shared with Dr Mpanza and a small “clique of neurosurgeons” committed to providing world-class neurovascular services to patients in their communities.
Healthcare chose him, says Dr Mpanza who gave up dreams of being an engineer to become a neurosurgeon, and then undertook a subspeciality in neuro-endovascular medicine in order to help vulnerable people reclaim their lives. “Stroke gives no warning sign, and it increasingly strikes younger patients which causes even more trauma to families,” he says.
He doesn’t need thanks. Seeing a patient regain their abilities makes him happy, Dr Mpanza says. Dr Rambe agrees: “Nothing beats it.”
It’s no wonder they’re affectionately called “the twins”.
‘Proud, absolutely proud’
Matron Gwen Naidoo, whom one suspects of being the source of that pet name, is “proud, absolutely proud” of her hospital’s stroke care journey. With 30 compassion-driven years of nursing behind her, she has the experience to recognize the impact Drs Mpanze and Rambe have had on her team.
“At first the cath lab nursing staff were worried about the new doctors, we had to go in and calm them down,”she says. But Matron Gwen assured the angio nurses that this was a learning opportunity and so it proved to be. The twins’ training culture has spilled into other departments, boosting the confidence of staff working in the emergency department, the intensive care unit and on the wards.
It doesn’t take very long to discover that Sunward Park is a compassion-led hospital.
Sr Lucille has it. Raised in a family of nurses, her parents predicted she would make her career in healthcare because compassion for others was simply second nature.
Matron Ravina has it. “I just have it in me,” she says. “I love to see good outcomes. We have the expertise to provide outstanding care and change someone’s life within an hour and that is so satisfying.”
Dr Portia Mentoro has it. “As a person I am a carer,” she says. “I love to hold hands and educate patients about their disease.”
And then there’s hospital manager Greg Mokgoatlheng whose sense of community responsibility runs so deep that he changed his career because of it. “I started in engineering, and I enjoyed it, but it lacked fulfillment,” he says. “As an engineer you serve the community indirectly, but I knew I could be more impactful in healthcare.”
Sunward Park may be a private hospital, but for Greg the duty to provide the best and safest patient care to the community comes first. It’s about making the right promises and delivering on them, and doing what they’re capable of as well as they possibly can. “I see the hospital as a service provider,” he says, “that’s where my passion lies.”
Word is out
Dr Carla Calldo felt the passion the very first time she saw an elderly stroke patient treated by the Sunward Park team. Doctors gathered round to help, she says; it was a spontaneous display of teamwork such as she had never observed elsewhere. The outcome was “momentous’, she says, as not long after undergoing mechanical thrombectomy, the 92-year-old patient was discharged home.
Dr Nelson Alves calls himself an old hand – an emergency physician who provides leadership in the ED, he has been at the coalface for more than 12 years. By now, when he sees a stroke patient, he can predict what will happen if the patient receives emergency thrombolysis, and what will happen if they don’t.
He had always been interested in stroke, Dr Nelson says. And from the first time he saw a thrombolysed patient recover their function and return to normal, he was hooked. “Once you see the difference it can make, it ignites something that makes you want to replicate the effect for as many patients as possible,” he says.
An organized pathway and an engaged team with shared goals now means fewer missed opportunities. And with neurointerventionists on board, they’re finally able to assist patients with large vessel occlusion who may derive limited benefit from thrombolysis.
Treating stroke is not a one-man-show, Dr Nelson says. Nor is it a process that begins at the hospital door. A stroke starts in the community, and close cooperation with and prenotification. by the EMS Angels award-winning team at Netcare 911 Gauteng South, has helped reduce the interval between symptom onset and patient arrival. (Netcare 911 Gauteng South includes Netcare 911 EMS bases in Johannesburg South, the East Rand & the Vaal.)
“Word is out to the EMS and primary healthcare services,” Dr Portia says. The community is taking note that this East Rand hospital can treat stroke to prevent disability and dependency – and that’s perfectly aligned with Greg’s community-focused vision.
Treating stroke may not a one-man show, but sometimes it can take a one-woman thunder bolt to get the ball rolling. Although she insists Greg and Matron Gwen were the initiators, Sr Lucille played a critical role in assembling the multidisciplinary team and stroke group that transformed stroke care at Sunward Park.
A trauma nurse, Lucille’s interest in stroke grew as she learnt more about it, both from Wendy and by doing courses in the Angels Academy. She realized that her hospital had what it took to become a center of excellence, and provide outstanding care to their elderly community.
Her next project is WSO Stroke Center accreditation for Sunward Park, which involves a rigorous certification process to demonstrate that the hospital follows evidence-based practices, maximizes efficiency, achieves continuous quality improvement, and ultimately reduces stroke-related mortality and disability.
Lucille’s deadline for certification is the end of 2026 – when hopefully the Sunward Park team will be back to share an even bigger story.
