SA’s Mampeule backs Global Surgery Foundation

A SOUTH African entrepreneur is the sole founding donor of the UN-aligned Global Surgery Foundation (GSF), launched in Davos at the World Economic Forum (WEF).

Rali Mampeule, a Johannesburg-based entrepreneur and leader in real estate investing, made an undisclosed contribution through his Rali and Makentse Mampeule Foundation.

The foundation, launched with the UN’s Institute for Training and Development, works to close the gap that sees over 5 billion people and 90% of the world’s poor having no or inadequate access to basic surgery and surgical care.

Each year, surgically avoidable deaths are six times more than deaths from HIV, malaria and tuberculosis combined, which claim three million lives, according to experts.

The toll from surgically avertible deaths is 17 million annually, most of them from the developing world.

One of those deaths was Mampeule’s

sister Refilwe, who died in a public hospital in Tzaneen, along with her unborn child.

“People should not have to die,” he said, “because they had to make a choice between a public and private hospital.”

According to the GSF, 30% of the global burden of disease is caused by conditions that can be treated by surgery. In most countries, traumatic injury is the leading cause of death.