MEDIC ON A MISSION

Dr Juandré Klopper knows the impact of the shortage of doctors on the public health system so he's hatched a plan to bring relief where it's needed 

- MARELIZE GRBICH 

THE pace was unrelenting. Some nights, he’d be in the emergency unit trying to help someone who’d been shot or stabbed, and another patient would burst in, desperate for treatment.

It was a huge effort to keep up with the amount of work, and there was no way to immediately help all the people who flooded in through the hospital doors.

“There simply aren’t enough doctors in the system,” Juandré Klopper (27) says.

The crisis in the South African public health sector is hardly new – stories have done the rounds for years of patients waiting for hours or even days to be seen, some of them dying in the process.

But while some people become hopeless or even cynical in the face of a seemingly insurmountable problem, Juandré was determined to find a solution.

Ever since he can remember, he’s wanted to be a doctor, and as a little boy, he insisted people call him Dr Klopper. He realised his dream and got his medical degree – but these days, he no longer works full-time in operating theatres or emergency units.

He has a different passion now: saving more lives by healing the country’s broken health system.

Juandré was spurred on in his mission last year when it was announced the health department had an R8,7 billion wage shortfall, meaning 18 000 doctors positions couldn’t be filled.

He had to do something – and it took a spark around a braai to light a fire under an idea he hopes will change the face of SA healthcare.

He and his wife, Cinaé (26), who is also a doctor, were chatting with her parents, and he mentioned the issues plaguing him.