Medical practice growing despite Covid-19 threat
Sister Basha cares for sickly
Sister Basha Tlhapane-Taylor took the biggest risk of her life when she started a medical practice in the middle of the hard national lockdown with only four patients.
Less than a year later, the professional nurse has 344 patients and 11 medical personnel working with her on a part-time basis in Table View, Cape Town.
The lockdown, that hit SA in March due to the outbreak of Covid-19, saw many businesses close shop but people like Tlhapane-Taylor took a huge risk to survive the containment and helped other people to get employment.
“When I was younger I was denied the opportunity to study further and do what I dreamed of, which was changing people’s lives... and I can now do this through my work,” she said.
The 42-year-old senior nurse, who is originally from Lefathleng in Hammanskraal, north of Pretoria, was unable to finish her matric.
“I grew up in impoverished circumstances and I used to walk to school barefoot. When I was 17 I had to start working as a dental assistant because I was in a situation where I could no longer further my studies,” she said.
Soon after dropping out of school she was married and working as a collections consultant in the banking industry before deciding to complete her matric in 2005. “When I was done with matric, my husband and I decided we would take a year to prepare for us to move to Cape Town so I could study nursing because I was no longer going to be able to work while studying.”
At 32, she graduated with a diploma in nursing from Robin Trust Nursing College and started working as a junior medical nurse in the private sector. She now works as a sister in the neonatal and paediatric unit in a Mediclinic hospital part-time while also working for herself.
Her patients are mostly elderly, young women and their children and chronic patients. She and the other nurses also do home visits to help families with medical issues from dialysis to wound care.
“Before I became a nurse I used to pray with women in impoverished communities in Cape Town and in farm areas, and the women would tell me about their health issues but I couldn’t help them because I had no medical background at the time,” she said.
“My practice grew because of the work we do for people with special needs and helping them get the proper care they need. I just kept getting more and more referrals and because the patients are chronically sick we work with them on a day-to-day basis.”
Tlhapane-Taylor said she wants to continue working in a hospital to sharpen her skills for use in her practice and helping people who need special needs surgeries through her pro bono initiatives.