![]() In his role as the head of the HIV prevention programme for Right to Care, a nongovernmental organisation, Paul is realising that ambition by creating and implementing strategies to increase access to HIV healthcare services for vulnerable and stigmatised groups such as sex workers and the LGBTIQ community. “I want marginalised people living with the virus to stay alive just like her,” he says. She was eventually able to access treatment and is still alive today. To Potsane his aunt represents the thousands of marginalised people who have limited access to the healthcare that they need. “Being a black woman with no source of income, she could not access antiretroviral treatment from private pharmacies,” he recalls. Shaazia Ebrahimĭuring the days of Aids denialism, Paul Letsatsi Potsane watched his aunt suffer with HIV. She is also truly thankful for the tremendous support she receives from the hospital she works for. The unwavering support and encouragement from her husband and her helper who helps take care of her children and home make it possible for her to pursue all that she is doing. About keeping the balance, she says being able to prioritise, as difficult as it seems, and remembering the importance of placing God and family before her career has helped her a lot. She currently lectures, publishes and supervises master’s students at Wits University.Īmong her numerous pursuits, Phakathi is also a wife and a mother. She says breast cancer and HIV are both burning issues in women’s health in our time but not a lot is understood and known about these two diseases - especially when they co-exist.īeyond her PhD, Phakathi is working towards her professorship by improving her teaching profile, research and polishing up her leadership skills to prepare her for her ultimate goal of being a vice chancellor some day. The 33-year-old is in the process of completing her PhD in the molecular biology of breast cancer and HIV. Which is why she started the Boitumelo Phakathi Foundation, which focuses on career advancement and career development for youth in rural areas.īorn and raised in the North West village of Taung, Phakathi describes herself as a “humble, smart and ambitious young woman who has a steadfast faith in God of impossibilities”. Surpassing the expected period, and at that age, motivated her and reaffirmed that you can achieve anything the mind conceives despite the limitations set by those around you.īeing among few female surgeons at the time and overcoming the challenges of being a woman in a male-dominated field led Phakathi to realise the responsibility she had to ensure that female surgeons after her are supported and mentored to fast-track their success. “I was initially told I wasn’t going to last longer than three months in surgery, a then male-dominated speciality,” Phakathi says. In 2014, Dr Boitumelo Phakathi was the youngest surgeon in the country at the age of 29.
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