Saving lives in every department

At the height of the Covid-19 pandemic we saw pictures of health care workers completely exhausted and depleted. Even with the insurmountable pressure they were under, health workers continued to show up and do their duty. However, there are many components that ensure the wheels of healing continue to turn even in the face of a pandemic.

AdriBotes, Hospital Manager at Life Wilgehuewel Hospital is a qualified accountant and worked in finance before she became a hospital manager. She has always been in the medical fraternity and began her career at a hospital in Witbank. “I was part of the hospital with all the adrenaline and excitement. I then got promoted to a regional office where I ran the accounting department and I got so bored,” she said “It was just going to the office that was not based at a hospital and it was boring. I realised that I missed the excitement so I applied for the Life Flora Hospital position as a finance manager.”

A vacancy at Life Robinson Private Hospital finally opened doors for her in hospital management. She confessed that she was bored of the monotony in accounting, “budgets, month-ends and forecasts, you get bored of doing that. I liked the excitement of what happens behind the scenes and the actual business side of things.”

Managing a hospital entails co-ordinating all the functions to render a system that saves lives. It includes a bit of everything from strategy development to picking up trash in the parking lot. “You do whatever to make the hospital available to the community. It’s strategy, operational and making sure that there is staff to render a service.” Ultimately, Botes confessed that she has to wear and pull off many hats.

Although members of the public have seen glimpses of how far doctors and nurses were stretched during the pandemic, managing a hospital during this period surely came with its own obstacles. Botes said: “Nothing in this world could have prepared us for it. I think every hospital manager will tell you that it is probably the most daunting experience of our lives,” she began “we had to think on our feet. Things changed; what you implemented today might not work tomorrow due to volumes of patients coming in. One thing that I think we did well was collaborate with specialists on the subject because it was a new disease.”  She admitted that they where overwhelmed initially because of the unknown around the virus,  “there’s no way that you can do it without speaking to the professionals and getting them involved. Also the support of your doctors, we’ve got an amazing group of doctors and they assisted with the clinical side of things. In short; there is no management course that could prepare you for this.”

Her two take-aways from being with the hospital for five years are; flexibility and communication. “What I have also learned is how amazing the community was. Our staff worked long hours and it was emotionally and physically taxing on them but the community prayed, brought parcels and would ask what they could do for us. From a management side of things; being able to change your own processes was one of the important lessons. You might have just implemented something but tomorrow it’s not working and being able to do that at the drop of a hat.”

There are numerous new developments in the pipeline for the hospital. Currently the construction of a 32-bed ward is underway and a 20 station renal unit, “we are building six doctors rooms because we have run out of doctors rooms. We are also adding a theatre to our complex. We have created parking and all of that is just the first phase,” Botes revealed. “My vision for the hospital is to be the preferred provider of medical care to our community and to render a service at a level that meets everybody’s expectation.”