Ten years ago, when she was 65 years old, Dr Princess Anne-Sheilah Makhado cried bitterly when she was rejected for a master's programme because she had got 59.8% in her honours degree and needed 60% minimum to qualify.
However, that rejection fuelled her to work hard and last year at the age of 74, she got her PhD.
At the time that she was doing her honours degree, which she completed in 2010, Makhado was also juggling a demanding role as nursing services manager at Midlands Provincial Hospital in Graaff Reinet, a position she held for six years. Despite pouring herself into her studies, her final mark was not enough for her to get into master' and she was shattered.
“The rejection hit hard. I cried like a baby,” she recalls.
However, Makhado was very determined to continue with her education even in her pension years and decided to do something about it two years later.
“Then in 2017, I went back to the university and I said: ‘I am back to repeat my honours now’.”
She completed the degree a second time and graduated in 2018. That same year, she enrolled for her master’s, which she completed in 2020.
Makhado never stopped learning and last year she graduated with a PhD in advanced nursing science from the University of Venda at the age of 74.
Her master’s research, which focused on the experiences of child-headed households, was inspired by her work with a nonprofit organisation she founded in 2018 called Voice of the Voiceless.
Building on this, her PhD explored strategies to improve support for these children. She interviewed children in child-headed homes aged 14 and 19. She also conducted additional focus group discussions within the community.
“Many of these children, when asked about their parents, would say: ‘We heard that our mother died, but we’re not sure when, we don’t even have a picture of our mom’.
“And many of them didn’t know their fathers,” she said.
A key finding in Makhado’s research was the need to educate men around family values.
“That’s why, in my recommendations, I said there should be man-to-man programmes because men are [conceiving] children and leaving the children there. Men must learn to take care of their children, not just dump the mother with the baby.
“Then the mother has HIV and dies – and the children?”
Another key recommendation was that traditional leaders should play a greater role in caring for orphaned children.
“I went to the traditional leaders and said: What are you doing for these children? You need to have a list of the children that are heading families in your area and you must visit them.”
With high crime rates, alcohol and drug use and some child-headed homes unable to secure their doors, Makhado also questioned the role of the community policing forum.
“Are they aware that these children must be protected and kept safe?... The drug sellers know there are no parents and know they can abuse these children.”
Makhado grew up in a tightly knit family of seven siblings where her father worked for the then native affairs department and her mother was a school teacher.
“My mother was so neat and clean and organised,” she said.
“My mother taught us never to take no for an answer and to never settle for less.”
After matric Makhado trained and worked first as a teacher, then as a typist. But one day she had to go to a hospital and upon seeing nurses, she knew then she wanted to be one.
“I saw the crisp white uniforms and my heart bled. I knew this was what I wanted.”
At 27, Makhado started her diploma in nursing, then after some time she moved to Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital in Soweto to specialise in midwifery.
She said her first job as a nursing sister in Baragwanath’s buzzing casualty and neurology sections was “wonderful, really”.
Chuckling, Makhado recalls how one patient grew so enamoured with her, that she suggested Makhado marry her brother: “So the guy was invited to come and meet me. But he was a short guy and I was not interested in short guys.”
According to Makhado, the epitome of being a nurse is the ability to put yourself in the shoes of patients.
“Nursing starts with you. The question is ‘how would you like to be treated when you are ill’?” – Spotlight
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