Prof. Busisiwe Mrara
Nominee's Province:
Eastern Cape
Project Name/Description:
Walter Sisulu University
Anaesthesiologist and academic Professor Busisiwe Mrara says it gives her fulfilment to be part of the solution to improve healthcare in rural Eastern Cape and the country. Mrara, 46, was born in Alice but grew up in Mthatha and graduated with a degree in medicine from Wits University in 1998. Her career started at the Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital, Soweto, in 1999, where she worked as an intern, after which she worked as a community service medical officer at Mthatha General Hospital and Zithulele Provincial Hospital in Mqanduli, Eastern Cape. After a two-year stint in the UK, she worked as a trainee specialist from 2003, qualifying as a specialist anaesthesiologist in 2007, and a critical care subspecialist in 2010 at Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital. In February 2014, she took up a dual position in Mthatha as a Chief Specialist and Head of Anaesthesia and Intensive Care at Nelson Mandela Academic Hospital and Walter Sisulu University Medical School. Her main reason for returning to home province was to make it easy for locals, especially from rural areas, to receive critical medical attention. Her duties encompass ensuring the efficient running of the hospital’s 11 theatres and its 13-bed intensive care unit (ICU), and supervising medical officers and the administration of anaesthetics of complex and critically ill patients. Mrara is the first black woman to be elected president of the College of Anaesthetists of SA, which shapes the training curriculum and tests the competency of anaesthesia specialists in the country through the administration of board exams.
