From being schooled in people’s back rooms in the rural village of Ngolo to losing her only daughter and having to complete her specialist training amid a global pandemic, a Gqeberha doctor’s adversities could not deter her from becoming the first intensivist to train and qualify in the province.
Instead, the odds have propelled some of Dr Tobisa Fodo’s most crucial career decisions which led her to the record-breaking achievement.
Livingstone Hospital’s Fodo qualified as a specialist in intensive care in July, joining only three other intensivists working in the Eastern Cape’s public sector.
The three specialists — Mthatha’s Dr Busi Mrara, and Livingstone Hospital’s Drs Liz van der Merwe and Pinky Zozi — trained in Gauteng and the Western Cape.
Growing up in Mthatha, the odds were already against Fodo, who kicked off her schooling career in a primary school where mud classrooms could only accommodate a limited number of pupils.
This meant Fodo and some of her peers would either sit outside to learn or squeeze into the back room of a villager’s home.
“We were some of the first few people to study there because it was a very new school.
“There wasn’t even a structure big enough to accommodate all pupils, so we relied on people from the community who opened up their homes to us so we could have somewhere to learn.
“I remember that in [grade 4], I learnt from a hut in a nurse’s home,” Fodo said.
It was only when Fodo started high school at Mthatha’s Zingisa Comprehensive High School that her eyes were opened to the possibility of a different life.
“It was a Catholic, no-nonsense kind of school and so we had nothing else to do but study.
“Zingisa is where my mindset changed because [the teachers] there really made us want to become something.
“They reinforced discipline and the urge to want to do something with your life.
“As a result, the majority of people who were in my class have indeed done great,” she said.
Fodo matriculated among the top in her class and enrolled to study medicine at the then University of Transkei (Unitra).
The doctor attributes her realisation of the world’s possibilities to her high school teachers and her late grandmother, Julia, who encouraged education even though she had never been afforded the same opportunities.
Fodo qualified as a specialist physician in 2015, and suffered a tragedy when her only daughter and second child died in 2016.
Tragic as it was, her daughter’s illness and death inspired Fodo’s passion for intensive care.
“Having spent the time I spent in ICU with my child, I realised I didn’t know much about what was going on.
“There was just so much happening at the time and I wished I could do something, but without the expertise I could do absolutely nothing.
“When I heard that there was an opening [in intensive care] I applied,” she said.
Fodo trained under Livingstone intensivist Van der Merwe until she completed her training.
“I am so grateful to [Van der Merwe] for taking on the challenge of training specialists, as difficult a journey as it is.
“It was brave of her to pioneer this, knowing the dropout and failure rate in this journey,” she said.
Among her reasons to start and complete her training in the Eastern Cape was to provide a familiar, suitable environment for her autistic son, Fodo said.
“We’ve been in [Gqeberha] since 2010, and during all this time we’ve found the right therapist, school and a community of other parents [with autistic children], so to up and leave all of that would have meant to start all over and it’s not easy.”
She said her immediate family, including her two sons and her helper, had supported her throughout her training and during the country’s battle against Covid-19.
Van der Merwe said the timing could not have been better for Fodo to qualify as a specialist in intensive care, with the country being in the midst of a third wave of the coronavirus.
She said Fodo’s achievement had lifted their spirits and she was immensely proud of her.
“The thing about Tobisa is, not only is she a hard worker, but she’s such a team player and a great colleague who’s always willing to go the extra mile,” Van der Merwe said.
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