Page 9 - UJAMAA Company profile

In 2016, the birth of the idea to start an African orthopaedic implant business was at Chris Hani Baragwanath Academic Hospital where our founder, Dr Oatile Phakathi, was operating with his mentor, Dr Nkhodiseni Sikhauli. Whilst scrubbing before entering the operating room, the two colleagues made an observation that besides the pa- tient and the personnel in theatre an overwhelming majority of the equipment which are crucial in successfully carrying out a surgical pro- cedure were all foreign imports constituting close to 100% of ortho- paedic implants and equipment.
Having been inspired into public service by Pan-African liberation philosophies from Biko to Du Bois, Fela to Fanon, Sobukwe to Sankara, Ngugi to Nyere. Oatile felt duty-bound to draw from the teachings of these great minds and stand up and be counted for and contribute to the “final liberation” of the continent. That being the restoration of the continents dignity through it’s rightful economic participation. Commencing his orthopaedic surgery training in 2017, Oatile along with a carefully picked team incorporated Ujamaa Ortho (Pty) Ltd. While deepening his orthopaedic knowledge Oatile also travelled across Europe and Asia to better understand the orthopaedic value chain. During this time Oatile and Co-Founder Papama Matsiliza, who has a strong financial background in accounting and auditing, were also learning about the local economics and regulatory frameworks gov- erning the orthopaedic implant market.
In early 2018 UJAMAA began distributing orthopaedic trauma implants with rapid access into three provinces and into both public and private sectors. UJAMAA proved profitable in it’s first year of operating and in 2019, after completing half of his orthopaedic surgery specialist train- ing, Oatile decided to join Papama on a full-time basis and focus their collective efforts, strengths and skillsets in realizing the dream that was borne out of a need that was greater than either of their individual career aspirations.
Oatile and Papama seek to leverage their collective knowledge base and complimentary skillset to create an Afri-centric orthopaedic devic- es manufacturer where local orthopaedic surgeons can contribute to the development of the next generation of orthopaedic technologies whilst creating a new industry in South-Africa to service the continent.
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