Tambo Memorial Hospital

Sibosiso Mhlambi believes that each hospital has a soul, and one can sense it by walking the corridors. Having spent much of his life in hospitals, Mhlambi now has a healthcare consultancy, Mhlambi & Associates. He started it last year after walking away from two-and-a-half years of real achievement at KwaZulu-Natal's biggest hospital, King Edward VIII in Durban, where he was chief medical superintendent. He went from a job where he ran a 1 400-bed hospital with 3 600 staff and a budget of R401 million to running a one-person business from home. The company has two divisions, one focusing on business opportunities and the other on consultancy work. At present he is project manager in a consortium comprised of management company PricewaterhouseCoopers, the University of Natal Medical School and the KwaZulu-Natal Progressive Primary Healthcare Network. The consortium is developing structures to improve primary healthcare services in the eThekweni municipality, which includes researching the potential role of the private sector in primary healthcare delivery. This involves drawing up a database of private healthcare practitioners, including those in the complementary medical fields of acupuncture and traditional healing. This ground-breaking research will be able to map public and private facilities in the metro region via global positioning networks and indicate the areas where there is the greatest need. A recent contract giving him a national profile is as a hospital strategy and organisational development consultant to the Gauteng department of health. The brief includes working with staff of the Ga-Rankuwa Academic Hospital, the Tambo Memorial Hospital and the Heidelberg Hospital. He spends three days a week in Gauteng. Mhlambi also does consultancy work for Afrox Healthcare, looking at possible public-private partnerships. Other work includes investigating the feasibility of building a private hospital in Ulundi. In the business opportunities division Mhlambi is finalising a deal with a multinational supplier of surgical sundries to become its distribution agent in KwaZulu-Natal. He is also involved in negotiations for a black empowerment group to buy into an existing private hospital group. Private healthcare is increasingly out of reach for ordinary people, and in his view there is a niche for an affordable but high-quality hospital group. Mhlambi says leaving King Edward VIII without the security of another job was difficult and there have been times when he has doubted himself. But he found he has the skill to motivate and mentor people. His advice to potential entrepreneurs is to choose carefully the industry they want to operate in and know it well. It helps to have a track record. They must also find a good mentor and believe in themselves. He agrees with the view that South Africa is particularly prone to paralysis by analysis and that the worst thing a manager can do is to do nothing. People must be allowed to learn from their mistakes. (Deon Delport: Business Report, 8 September 2002)