About AHP

Our Board

AHP is a joint venture between Foundation for Professional Development (Pty) Ltd and Rural Health Initiative of the South African Academy of Family Physicians Trust. Each joint venture partner nominates two members to AHP's advisory board. The board is responsible for:

Approving the project strategic direction
Reviewing the projects purpose, vision and values on an annual basis
Reviewing project outcomes on a quarterly basis against progress indicators
Reviewing results annually
Reporting back to their respective principals (FPD and RHI)

Jannie Hugo
Professor

Prof.Jannie Hugo (MB ChB, M Fam Med) is a family physician and associate professor in the Department of Family Medicine at the University of Pretoria responsible for Community Engagement for the Faculty of Health Sciences. Before that he worked for 17 years at Medunsa. He is the on the executive and several committees of the Medical and Dental Professions Board of South Africa, director of the Rural Health Initiative (RHI) where he initiated a rural recruitment programme that developed into the establishment of African Health Placements (AHP), an NGO recruiting health professionals for rural and underserved areas in Southern Africa. He is also a founder-researcher of the Madibeng Centre for Research (MCR) in Brits and a director of Enablemed, a managed health care organization.

His interest is education in primary care, the consultation, the management of primary care services, district and rural health and the development of district campuses in urban and rural areas. He published about the consultation, district clinic health services, the management of district hospitals and training in primary care. For three years (2003 -2006) he was the facilitator of a project in the development of family medicine training in SA and initiated the development of a midlevel medical worker programme for SA. At MCR he is also involved in Microbicide research.

Dr Gustaaf Wolvaart
Managing director of Foundation for Professional Development

Dr Gustaaf Wolvaardt holds an MBChB (1983), an MMed (Internal Medicine) (1990) and a post-graduate qualification in higher education (PGCHE) (2008) from the University of Pretoria. He is also a Fellow of the College of Physicians of South Africa and completed the Manchester Business School Advanced Management Programme in 1998.

In 1991 he left a full-time academic medical career when he accepted the position as South Africa’s first Health Attaché based at the South African permanent mission in Geneva. His mandate was to re-establishing technical cooperation between the South African health sector and the international community in Europe as South Africa moved to democracy. In this position he represented South Africa at the WHO, UNAIDS, UNESCO and other United Nations organisations. During this period he was elected as the Interim Chairman of the UNAIDS governing board for its third session (1995) and as chairman of the African Health liaison committee in Geneva (1995 – 1996).

In 1996 he initiated an international campaign on behalf of the South African Ministry of Health that resulted in violence being declared a public health priority by WHO. As Health Attaché he also actively promoted scientific and technical cooperation through the mobilisation of research funding and through establishing various WHO collaboration centres in South Africa.

On returning to South Africa in 1996 he joined the South African Medical Association as healthcare executive, where he initiated a number of public health projects and successfully secured the bid to host the XIII International Aids Conference in South Africa in 2000. He also chaired the conference organizing committee acting as project manager for this 13 000 delegate conference which at that time was the largest health conference held in Africa. Since then he has initiated a number of health-related conferences in South Africa.

In 1997 he became the founding managing director of the Foundation for Professional Development (FPD), a private institution of higher education focussing on promoting transformation through education research and community development.(www.foundation.co.za). FPD provides management and professional skills development courses anually to approximately 23 000 students across Africa, organises various national and international conferences and has a number of capacity development projects that includes a centre of academic excellence in infectious diseases, promoting nursing leadership and supporting HIV/Aids and TB treatment, care and support. FPD currently supports more than 100 000 ART patients. FPD also has a number of novel capacity development projects focusing on among others the recruitment of international health care professionals to work in South Africa, developing grassroots NGOs and providing masters degree fellows to HIV/Aids service organisations.

Dr Wolvaardt serves on the board of directors of the South African Institute for Health Care Managers, Dira Sengwe Conferences, Right to Care and Aids Accountability International. He has published a number of articles on international health and health management issues and advises a number of international clients on international health issues from time to time. In 2007 he was recognised as one of the 25 most influential South African health care leaders by the South African Institute of Health Care Managers

Dr Clarence Mini
Chairman

Very often governments have very grand plans with fantastic timelines but soon after the publication of the plans they realise that they need an extra hand to make things happen. With my many years' experience in non-profit and philanthropic work I agreed to lend a hand to this wonderful non-governmental organisation that is helping to place healthcare professionals in facilities around the country. The understaffing in rural areas of our country is legend an our executive staff is working to make sure that we try and correct that. In this endeavour we work hand-in-hand with our government and the very supportive donors that understand our mission.

Present employment:

Corporate affairs executive – Toga Molecular Biology Laboratory

Previous employment:

Principal medical officer – Port Elizabeth Municipality
National director – Family Health International
National coordinator – Management Sciences for Health
National director – MESAB Palliative Care Initiative
Corporate affairs executive – Thebe Ya Bophelo Healthcare Administrators
Self-employed as a general practitioner for many years

Non-executive responsibilities:

Chairman – African Health Placements
Chairman – Board of Healthcare Funders
Board member – Institute of Human Evolution(Wits University)
Trustee – St Andrews School for Girls

Previous non-executive responsibilities:

National co-chairperson – National Aids Convention of South Africa(NACOSA)
Chairperson – Southern African Network of Aids Service Organizations(SANASO)
Board member – Dira Sengwe Conferences
President – Gauteng Medical Association
Chairperson – Gauteng Accreditation Committee for Health Facilities

Nominations for awards:

Nelson Mandela Award for Health and Human Rights
Global Health International Award.

Sam Fehrsen
Professor of Family Medicine

George Samuel Fehrsen was born in Cape Town and matriculated at Rondebosch Boys High School in 1955, completed MB Ch B degree at the University of Cape Town in 1962 and BA degree at the University of South Africa in 1974 and was awarded the Membership of the Faculty of General Practitioners (MFGP) by the College of Medicine of South Africa in 1976. As a medical student he was awarded a prize for the best essay titled “Recurrent Abdominal pain in children” by the South African Paediatric Society.

He did his internship at Mc Cords Zulu Hospital in Durban in 1963 and 1964. He worked for the following 10 years in the Eastern Cape Province mainly in the rural hospitals of Rietvlei and Mount Ayliff in Transkei serving as Medical Superintendent in the latter from 1966 to 1974. He also worked as a Medical Officer at Livingstone Hospital from 1964 to 1965.

He joined academia in 1975 as a lecturer in the Department of Family Medicine at the University of Pretoria and was Acting Head of Department during 1976. In 1977 he was appointed the first (1st) Head of the Department of Family Medicine at the Medical University of Southern Africa (MEDUNSA) and served until his retirement at the end of 1996. Following his retirement he continued to work part time in the Department from 1997 to 2002. He was a founding member of the South African Academy of Family Practice Council from 1981 and President of the Academy from 1993 to 1999. He was committed to the development of family medicine as a discipline and in particular to the teaching and practice of the patient centered clinical method as one of the central pillars of the discipline.

At present he is the Managing Director of a Managed Health Care Company that manages the risk for medical aid schemes of their low cost options for people of low income. The Makoti Plan of Good Hope Medical Aids Society was the first plan that was so managed.

He is renowned medical educationist nationally and internationally. He developed with staff and students, a distance education programme for the Masters in Family Medicine degree at MEDUNSA in order to promote community based and problem based learning and in this way making a difference to the way medicine is practiced particularly in rural areas ..

Prof Fehrsen serves as a Consultant in Health Professional Education and Primary Health Care. He played a key role in the negotiations preceding the establishment of the Faculty of Health Sciences at the then University of Transkei (UNITRA) through his involvement as a Consultant for the Development Bank of Southern Africa for the UNITRA Health Training Master Plan in 1988 to 1992. He was instrumental in supporting the establishment of the Department of Family Medicine at UNITRA in 1988 and professionally supported the other Departments of Family Medicine in the country .. He was one of the major role players in getting the discipline of Family Medicine gazetted as a speciality in South Africa. His expertise as an educationist has been sought internationally for consultancies in Botswana, Thailand (funded by the European Union), Democratic Republic of Congo and the World Health Organization. He is a member of several professional bodies nationally and internationally and has held leadership positions in a number of them.