Stellenbosch University
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FMHS greets Prof with ‘a brilliant mind and a compassionate heart’
Author: FMHS Marketing & Communications / FGGW Bemarking & Kommunikasie – Tyrone August
Published: 16/04/2021

​From an early age, it was clear that Prof Rafique Moosa was a gifted academic. In 1973, he obtained the highest marks in the country in the Department of Coloured Affairs matric exam. He went on to complete his MBChB cum laude at the University of Cape Town in 1979.

That was the promising beginning of what turned out to be a long and remarkable career, which finally ended in February when he retired as executive head of Stellenbosch University's Department of Medicine and Tygerberg Academic Hospital.

However, what also distinguished his career was that it was not confined to academic achievements. At the same time, he displayed a keen commitment to confronting the social inequities of apartheid, and consistently pursued transformation in healthcare and education throughout his career.

“Apartheid was at its peak when I was in medical school," says Moosa. “Racism was quite rife." Black students could not enter white wards, for example, and were initially not even allowed to attend postmortems of a white body.

It was against this background that he entered the medical profession. In 1980, he went to Somerset Hospital in Cape Town for his one-year internship. He then decided to specialise in internal medicine, and joined Baragwanath Hospital in Soweto for six months as Senior House Officer: “It was really an eye-opener. The hospital was completely overwhelmed with patients; some were lying on mattresses, sometimes under the beds."

After six-month stints at King Edward Hospital in Durban as Senior House Officer in paediatrics and at Livingstone Hospital in Port Elizabeth (now Gqeberha) as Medical Officer, he returned to Baragwanath Hospital in 1982 as Medical Officer.

In February 1983, he became Registrar at Groote Schuur Hospital. Its wards and emergency units were then still segregated, but the indefatigable Moosa and like-minded colleagues quietly defied this. When the emergency units for white patients were not busy, they would sneak in black patients: “A superintendent reprimanded me, but we pushed the boundaries whenever we could."

While at Groote Schuur Hospital, he chose nephrology as a subspecialty. However, when the hospital made no effort to accommodate him afterwards, Moosa joined Tygerberg Hospital in February 1989 as a nephrologist. “It was hard work, but the people seemed to be warmer and more friendly," he remembers.

But, he adds, everything at the hospital was still segregated. “We pushed very strongly for wards and the two dialysis units to be integrated," he says. Moosa also spearheaded other changes at Tygerberg Hospital, such as improving its infrastructure, which he described as terrible.

He contacted nearby high schools and asked for assistance from their students; they readily agreed and peeled off the vinyl and painted the walls of the dialysis units. He also got art students to reproduce work in the wards by famous painters such as Matisse and Van Gogh. “That was my first idea of the importance of visual transformation to create a completely different atmosphere, and improve the mood and morale of patients and staff," he explains.

He also raised Tygerberg Hospital's profile in nephrology by joining several organisations, including the South African Renal Society, National Kidney Foundation, Southern African Transplant Society and International Society for Nephrology, and hosting various  academic meetings.  This led to Tygerberg Hospital being asked to accommodate trainees from other African countries in the late 1990s. “There is a desperate need for nephrologists, not only in South Africa," says Moosa, who became head of the hospital's renal unit in 1992.

In 1996, he became associate professor in Stellenbosch University's Department of Medicine, and played a leading role in developing its transformation charter in 2005 – the first in the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences (FMHS).  “It gives us the values and policies we stand for," he says, and includes a commitment to inclusivity and creating an enabling environment for staff and students.

In November 2006, he became overall head of the Department – its first black head, and one of the few black departmental heads in the Faculty. However, even though he held the most senior position in the largest Department in the Faculty, he still experienced covert forms of racial discrimination.

“But," he adds, “as head of department, I realised I had the authority and power to change things quite substantially."  He then proceeded to recruit senior black staff and students. “The Department is now the most transformed in terms of race," says Moosa. He also refers to progress in gender equity, and estimates that women now make up 40 percent of the Department's staff.

Other, more subtle, changes included renaming areas in the Department (the entrance hall is now known as Steve Biko Square) and commissioning paintings of Biko and the 1956 women's march in Pretoria against pass laws.

The Department's transformation charter subsequently became the impetus behind the Faculty's decision to draw up its own transformation charter. Completed in 2019, it commits the Faculty to celebrating all forms of diversity and protecting human rights, among other things.

As a member of FMHS Dean Prof Jimmy Volmink's advisory committee on transformation, Moosa also suggested introducing visual redress more broadly in the Faculty. One of the results is the depiction of the preamble of the Constitution – in English, Afrikaans and isiXhosa – in the portal to the Faculty.

Another initiative developed by Moosa was a policy on safe spaces, which enabled students to discuss issues such as racial discrimination and sexual harassment with safety officers.

His discussions with students just before #FeesMustFall protests at the medical school in 2016 reinforced his resolve to do what he could about racism in the Faculty and at the hospital. “I could handle racism at my level, but I don't think we always appreciate the challenges black students face," he declares. “I'm not quite sure how to change it, but change it we must."

Volmink is fulsome in his praise for Moosa's contribution to this process:  “As a member of the Faculty's senior leadership, he could always see the 'bigger picture'.  As a result, in addition to his departmental achievements, he was able to make enormous contributions to the Faculty and university on a number of levels.  His commitment to transformation at the Faculty will remain a lasting legacy."

Volmink adds: “Rafique's most impressive feature is that rare combination of a brilliant mind and a compassionate heart. He stood out as an astute and caring clinician, and a beloved teacher and mentor. Both undergraduate and postgraduate students loved him."

Dr Therese Fish, the Faculty's Vice Dean: Clinical Service and Social Impact, hails his contribution to transformation as well: “Prof Moosa has been a strong proponent of change in our Faculty, university and health services.

“Serving on the transformation committee of the university, he supported the development of a transformation charter in the Department of Medicine and then more broadly in the Faculty. The Faculty Charter is testament to his (and many others) commitment to the need to provide an enabling environment where our students and staff can reach their full potential."

Prof Usuf Chikte, who retired as head of the Department of Global Health at the end of 2018, shares this view:  “He didn't scream from the rooftops, but was involved in the trenches, inch by inch – in the wards, in the hospital, in the clinics, in the meeting rooms, he debated and argued from a position of social justice.

“His manner and the power of his ideas, values and vision found resonance throughout, so he could build and coalesce a group of people to change the direction of the Department, and subsequently the Faculty and the university. He was a pioneer."


Photo credit: Damien Schumann