Anna Mokgokong pays tribute to Dr Konji Sebati who died this week. Sebati worked hard to reach the pinnacle of success in the medical sector as a doctor, businesswoman and business executive. She also represented South Africa as a diplomat.
Gentle, charming, determined, hardworking, perfectionist, optimistic, empathic, compassionate, resilient, focused and selfless, Dr Maureen Lekojoane "Konji" Sebati, had a positive impact on the health and lives of thousands of people here and across the world.
Konji, 70, who died this week, once told me:
I was not surprised by her selfless attitude to life. She worked hard to reach the pinnacle of success in the medical sector as a doctor, businesswoman and business executive. When she was a diplomat, she represented South Africa abroad with aplomb.
Early years
Konji's route to serve the healthcare industry was not handed to her on a silver platter when viewed through both a clinical and business lens.
She was six years old when criminals killed her father, a medical inspector. Her mother, Anna, a nurse, then aged 35, was left alone to raise her and her siblings, as often the case in many families in our society where matriarchs take responsibility for their children's education and ultimately, their success in life.
Having to live on a meagre R100 as a family, Konji and her two brothers actively helped their mother in the evenings and over weekends in her small business in floral decoration and equipment hire for ceremonies alongside, which she conducted alongside her work as a nurse.
Influenced by her parents' passion for health care, Konji's dream was to become a doctor - a profession her father had nudged her to consider. Like her elder brother, after matriculating at Hwiti High School outside Polokwane, she went to the University of Turfloop, now the University of Limpopo, where she obtained a BSc degree in physiology and zoology.
Struggle to become a doctor
But the urge to become a doctor remained, and in the years that followed, she worked towards achieving her dream.
She applied to study medicine, but because of the quota system that allowed white universities to take a certain number of black students, the apartheid government offered her the opportunity to study dentistry instead, which she declined.
Fortunately, an extraordinary chance came her way when one of her mother's patients, who had a brother who was the dean at the faculty of medicine at the University of Nairobi in Kenya, drew attention to the plight of black students in South Africa who wanted to study medicine.
She applied and obtained a scholarship from the United Nations, which allowed her to go to the University of Nairobi to do medicine. It was a huge sacrifice for her widowed mother, who was a matron at Baragwanath hospital, now Chris Hani Baragwanath Academic Hospital, and had to bring up Konji's child while she was out of the country.
"At the Faculty of Medicine, Nairobi, I was the only South African on campus," she recalled.
Her widowed mother was constantly intimidated by visitations from the security police, wanting to know where Konji was. Because of the police harassment, Konji could not visit her home in Soweto to see her mother and young child.
Her life in Nairobi taught her to think as a global healthcare player, and that was where her lateral thinking came from. It enabled her to develop an international flair to her lifestyle and career as a global citizen.
When her brother died in 1983, Konji decided to return home. She had by then been working as a doctor for two years and worked at the Jomo Kenyatta Hospital in Nairobi.
Community health worker
She settled in Mafikeng in the then Bophuthatswana and worked for four years at the local hospital. But she was itching to study further. In 1985, she obtained a diploma in child health. She then trained at the University of the Witwatersrand and earned a diploma in health service management.
While she worked in the then Bophuthatswana, she was transferred to the Odi region as the regional health director. Later, she was mandated to commission a community hospital – Odi hospital in Mabopane, which she did timeously with excellent proficiency and cost-effectiveness.
Together with local doctors, she established public private partnerships to decentralise the immunisation of babies in the area, thus expediting the efficiency of immunisation. This worked well, even for working mothers because they could immunise their babies early in the morning and still rush off to work.
For me, this is a model that can still be used in our country to enable access to primary health by a collective effort of healthcare workers.
Konji had a positive impact on the health and lives of thousands of people. "I knew that in order to stay strong and to serve my community and country, I had to muster courage to get up and get going. I have faith in God and have always been optimistic about life. The support of my family and colleagues and leaders helped me get back on my feet," she once said.
Konji's spent a greater part of her life in the pharmaceutical sector.
Her deep sense of community responsibility and all her varied contributions enabled her to unleash her true potential and expertise. She leveraged all of this to make a difference in many people's lives.
Private sector
She joined the Swiss pharmaceutical group, Roche, in Johannesburg for a year before being hired by Pfizer, who sent her to its headquarters in New York as the first director of its African and Middle East operations, and also its philanthropic activities, including its HIV work.
While in New York, she encouraged and mobilised international philanthropists to invest and donate towards access to healthcare. Indeed, she also used her position to promote access to expensive medicines, such as Diflucan in the treatment of Crypto meningococcal infections in Aids-inflicted patients.
She was appointed Ambassador to Switzerland. While in Switzerland, she represented her country as ambassador to Lichtenstein and The Vatican. From Switzerland, she was appointed ambassador to France.
Later she became South Africa's permanent delegate to UNESCO, the United Nations Agency, and the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO).
Her work at WIPO also involved working with 187 Member States to agree on an international legal instrument to protect and promote Traditional Knowledge, Traditional Cultural Expressions and Genetic Resources.
Konji sat on the Board of Medicines for Malaria Venture, a non-profit research and development public-private partnership for new malaria medicines. Her love for jazz saw her being asked to chair The Hugh Masekela Foundation.
At the time of her death, she was the CEO of the Innovative Pharmaceutical Association of South Africa.
How many of us will work selflessly and resiliently towards the benefit of broader society and communities? We need more citizens like her.
She will be remembered for her valued contribution to her country and other countries, and her passion for her communities.
Dr Maureen Lekojoane "Konji" Sebati leaves us with fond memories of her legacy and the gallant milestones she achieved as a patriotic citizen of our country.
May her gentle soul rest in peace.
- Dr Anna Mokgokong is chairperson of the AfroCentric Health Group and Community Investment Holdings.
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