What began as a desperate measure by non-white doctors to treat their patients during the height of apartheid has evolved into Lenmed Health, the fourth-largest private hospital group in South Africa.
The group’s first facility, born from a vision of providing dignified healthcare when none was available, now stands as the state-of-the-art Ahmed Kathrada Private Hospital in Lenasia, a testament to a journey defined by struggle and a commitment to service.
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, apartheid laws created a “diabolical situation” for non-white medical specialists. “The law said that no black specialist can work in a private clinic,” explained Dr Rashid Ismail, an obstetrician and gynaecologist who was one of the pioneers.
While private hospitals in Johannesburg would admit their patients, the doctors themselves were barred from practising there. This forced them to use public facilities like Leratong Hospital, a perilous 30-kilometre journey away, often on quiet, risky roads in the middle of the night.
The conditions at the government hospital were far from ideal. Dr Ismail recalled how private patients were often neglected, compelling the doctors to “sleep on the floor and attend to the patients, even helping to admit them.” It was this “very tough time” that ignited the resolve among a small group of specialists to build their own facility.
“The whole idea at that time was not a lucrative clinic, but one where we could service our patients,” Dr Ismail emphasised. “It was more for servicing than establishing a business.”
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Overcoming apartheid’s barriers
The path to establishing the clinic was fraught with obstacles synonymous with the era’s systemic discrimination. The first major hurdle was acquiring land, a process that took two years of navigating a hostile government structure. “We had to sort of go with begging bowl to say, please, we need the land,” Dr Ismail recounted.
Securing finance proved to be an even greater challenge. Dr Ahmed Farouk Kaka, a general practitioner involved since the early days, noted that initial plans for a five-million-rand multistorey building were abandoned after banks refused to provide loans “because we were non-whites.” The community and doctors pooled their resources, but it was a struggle. Many, including Dr Kaka’s colleagues at Leratong, dismissed the idea as “pie in the sky.”
Undeterred, the founders pressed on, eventually raising enough to build a modest, 40-bed prefabricated structure with two theatres. “None of the people involved took any salaries. None of them drew any shares,” Dr Ismail stated. “This was a clinic for the people and to service the people.”
This foundational principle of service ensured the clinic opened its doors in 1984, welcoming everyone regardless of race or creed from Lenasia, Soweto, Eldorado Park and surrounding areas.
The initial years were a battle for survival. “Many times we were sinking. There were no profits and we battled to keep the clinic going,” said Dr Ismail. However, as more doctors joined and patient volumes grew, the clinic turned a corner, reinvesting its profits into expansion and better facilities.
From that single prefab building, Lenmed Health has grown into a formidable healthcare provider with a presence across Southern Africa. The original clinic, now the Ahmed Kathrada Private Hospital, has undergone five phases of expansion to become a 268-bed, multidisciplinary institution capable of performing complex procedures like open-heart surgery.
The group’s expansion began in 1992 and continued steadily, leading to the formation of Lenmed Health as a holding company in 2007. Today, it is the largest non-white hospital group in the country, employing over 4 300 people and boasting a total of 2 333 beds. Dr Kaka proudly noted the irony that “the bankers are now standing outside our doors begging us to take loans from them.”
Despite its corporate growth, the group maintains a strong focus on corporate social investment, with a spend of R27.9 million last year. This commitment to community service continues the legacy of its founders, who, in Dr Ismail’s words, decided to “take the law into our own hands, so to speak, and establish our own clinic despite the laws around us.”
Image credit: Medigence
