Local awarded honourary doctorate
Decades of dedication to her profession has earned local nurse, Sponono Baloyi an honorary doctorate from Tshwane University of Technology at the age of 79.
Born in Sabie, Baloyi moved to Johannesburg after high school to study general nursing at the Raheema Moosa Mother and Child Hospital, previously known as Coronation Hospital. After that, she went on to study midwifery at the Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital, also in Johannesburg, before returning to the Lowveld to work at Rob Ferreira Hospital.
In 1971 she won the Jimmy Liston Memorial Award from the South African Institute of Public Health for obtaining the highest marks in the country while studying public health at Wits Advanced Technikon.
It was as community health nurse for the Nsikazi Region under the Themba Hospital in KaBokweni that she found her passion in the prevention of non-communicable childhood diseases. She was part of a team that conducted mass community health education and immunisation campaigns against diseases such as tetanus, whooping cough, measles, diphtheria and tuberculosis.
“I can proudly say now that most of those diseases I had worked so hard to prevent have mostly been wiped out,” she said.
As senior community health nurse, she had to travel even greater distances to promote health care, and to ensure that clinics rendered accessible quality health care.
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From Themba Hospital she moved on to KaNgwane Government Head Office and during this period she won the Dettol Nursing Award for infection control in KaNgwane.
Awarded the opportunity to travel to the US as part of the USAID Africa Leadership Programme in 1984, she spent two weeks visiting rural areas to learn about community health care.
“It was tough. There were eight of us from developing countries and I had never been on a plane before, and back then it was difficult to move around. We were tested on our leadership and problem-solving skills in this way.”
She also received a scholarship from the British Council to study at the University of Bristol in the UK and spent a year doing her masters degree in primary health care. Baloyi later moved on to politics, first as minister of health and welfare in the KaNgwane government and then as a member of parliament for 10 years.
“I was very privileged to be on the health committee and to have been part of the changes in South Africa at that time. I think anyone would say they were lucky if they were able to work in the new government under the leadership of the late president Nelson Mandela.”
Baloyi retired in 2004 and moved back to Mbombela from Cape Town. These days she spends time with her family and relishes her “me time” after being so busy for five decades of her life.
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