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Bio: South Africa's Health Ombud, Professor Taole Mokoena

Professor Taole Mokoena is a medical graduate of the University of Natal, a Doctor of Philosophy graduate of the University of Oxford and a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons in Glasgow.

He is a recently retired Professor, academic Head of the Department of Surgery, and chief Surgeon of the Department of General Surgery at the University of Pretoria and Steve Biko Academic Hospital. He continues on a part-time sessional basis to teach, train, and supervise undergraduate and postgraduate medical students and research. He has academic and research experience in clinical surgery and laboratory immunology in South Africa, the United Kingdom, and Canada, where he has spent extended study and work.

Prof Mokoena’s clinical and research interests encompass immunology, oncology, and endocrinology. He previously worked in the renal transplant unit at the Universities of Natal and Witwatersrand, where he started an autologous bone marrow transplant programme and surgical endocrine clinic. He successfully undertook xenogeneic human-to-baboon stem cell transplant experiments at the University of Witwatersrand.

His clinical research activity’s current thrust is oncology, cancer, and trauma immune response. He introduced an international study through ECOG on trans-angiography chemoembolisation for advanced hepatocellular carcinoma. His current endocrine project is minimal access surgery for parathyroid adenoma and thyroid nodule surgery. He started and ran a laboratory research programme on the immune response to cancer and its management and studies of HPV in cancers of the Breast, Oesophagus, and Anorectum.

Professor Mokoena has modernised the Academic Department of Surgery. He introduced disease-focused units, the nodus for advanced specialist practice and training, and a platform for competitive clinical research. Under his leadership, new fledgling trauma and metabolic surgery (bariatric) units were established. The department has seen a new surge in research output since he was appointed head.

He is active in academic and professional leadership having served at different times on several national academic and professional bodies including the SA Medical Association, Health Professions Council of SA, Colleges of Medicine of SA, College of Surgeons of SA, Association of Surgeons of SA (Past President 2007-9) and National Health Laboratories Trust, Medical Research Council (past chairman2001-4), and Council of University of the Transkei which ushered in the new Walter Sisulu University.

He was a special advisor and facilitator for the complex merger of MEDUNSA and the University of the North to form the University of Limpopo. He served on an International Accreditation Review Panel for Mauritius’s New Medical Training Programme. He was an ad-hoc Ministerial Advisory Committee member on transforming the National Health Act.

His teaching and training span about forty periods, during which he taught nursing and medical students and trainee specialist registrars in surgery. Professor Mokoena has successfully trained five basic laboratory science Master Students in Immunology and has two such students. He has supervised two PhD students and currently has a further two. He has served as PhD external examiner for Wits Medical School, UKZN Nelson Mandela Medical School and UCT.

His particular administrative tasks involve the following:

  • Professor Mokoena led a national inquiry on the high rate of COVID-19 infection and deaths among healthcare workers (2020).
  • Facilitated the difficult merger of MEDUNSA and the University of the North (2006).
  • Member of a panel that investigated discrimination within the Medical School at the UKZN (2005/6).
  • He was an ad-hoc Ministerial Advisory Committee member on transforming the National Health Act (1999-2000).
  • International Accreditation Review Panel member for the New Medical Training Programme in Mauritius (2014).
  • Convenor of a panel for Investigation of Surgical Deaths at the Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital (1996/7).
  • Chair of panel on the inquiry into discrimination within the Cardiology Department at CH Baragwanath Hospital (1998).
  • Acted as Assessor on Judicial Inquest Panel.
  • Served on HPCSA Disciplinary Inquiry from time to time.
  • Member of HPCSA Preliminary Committee (1994-2015).
  • Member of HPCSA Postgraduate Medical Training Accreditation Panel and its Convenor 4 times (1996-2017).
  • Member of Task Team on Planning of Tertiary Health Services Nationally and for Gauteng Province.

Professor Mokoena’s forte lies in strategic focus analysis and negotiations. He is known for serving with diligence and conscience, applying himself robustly and ethically without fear or favour. He continues to be an author and contributes to several publications.

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Justice Your Voice Matters SMS SMS your complaint to 48090 Call Lodge a Complaint 080 911 6472 Email Email your complaint to complaints@healthombud.org.za Safeguarding Safeguarding Quality Healthcare
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