Bizana professor dies from Covid-19 complications

Professor Lungile Pepeta (46), the executive dean of the Nelson Mandela University’s faculty of health sciences and chairman of the Council for Medical Schemes (CMS) died of Covid-19 related complications on Friday, August 7.

Prof Pepeta, who hailed from Bizana, was a renowned paediatric cardiologist and had recently helped spearhead the response to Covid-19.

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His death came as a huge shock, with friends and colleagues agreeing that ‘Uwile Umthi’omkhulu’ (a giant tree has fallen).

His provincial funeral was live streamed on YouTube yesterday, (Wednesday).

Professor Pepeta was described as having left a proud legacy of truth-telling, and dreams of better health care system in the Eastern Cape. Many doctors had benefited from his mentorship.

According to those who spoke at his funeral, the professor was a doctor who passionately championed the health of the province’s children above everything else and a man who fearlessly fought to open a medical school for rural doctors, stepping on a few politicians toes to achieve remarkable results in the public health care sector.

NMU’s vice-chancellor, Professor Sibongile Muthwa said Prof Pepeta had joined the institution on January 1 2017, adding that the late professor had specialised in paediatric cardiology, introducing a non-invasive procedure to correct heart defects in children.

“Children who were born with congenital heart disease, a condition with an abnormally high incidence in the province, no longer had to go the Red Cross Memorial Hospital in Cape Town for open heart surgery. Instead, their heart problems could be sorted out with a two-hour procedure,” he said. Prof Pepeta completed his MBChB at the University of the Transkei, now the Walter Sisulu University, in 1997, and obtained a diploma in child health care in 1999.

He qualified as a paediatrician in 2003 and worked in Komani before returning to study at Wits and the Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital to qualify as a pediatric cardiologist in 2008.

In 2009 he moved to Port Elizabeth, where he set up the first paediatric cardiology unit at the city’s provincial hospital. He had travelled the world through his profession and at the time of his death, was completing a PhD in paediatrics at Stellenbosch University.

Dr Adele Greyling, one of many doctors trained by the professor and who went on to become the first paediatric cardiologist in Africa to specialise in heart rhythm disturbances in children, said she was “beyond broken”.

“He gave everything to his profession, and he achieved so much in such a short period of time. I don’t know if they will ever find someone who can replace him.”

Students and colleagues also remembered his love for taking photos. On June 28, in one of his last Facebook posts, he posted a picture of himself and his team in full protective gear about to perform an emergency procedure on a baby, with the caption, “We shall soldier on Covid-19 or not!!!”

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