Combating the crushing stigma of infertility

Despite the challenges, Prof Nene is the sole full-time consultant and Head of the Reproductive and Endocrine Unit in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at the University of Pretoria.

Her journey started at the Inanda Seminary in Durban, then St Dominic's Catholic School for Girls in Boksburg where Prof Nene earned a scholarship to study for a BSc in biochemistry at the University of Cincinnati in Ohio.

Four years later, feeling homesick, she returned to Pretoria armed with her biochemistry degree and began studying medicine at Sefako Makgatho University (then Medunsa). She received awards for being the best internal medicine and best obstetrics and gynaecology final-year student, having kindled a passion for women's healthcare, infertility and surgery.

Passion for women's healthcare, infertility and surgery

She says Professor Ephraim Mokgokong contributed to her career choice when he did a hysterectomy on her mother. Rose had given birth to six children, two of them twins, just before Zozo. "My father, Dr Phineas Nene, being a Zulu man, was strongly against it. He had to be convinced clinically," Prof Nene recalls.

Women bear the stigma of infertility

She saw glaring areas of healthcare neglect during her training, including countless depressed women who'd suffered stigma, some with estranged husbands and others living as semi-social outcasts.

"There are not enough services or appropriate professional knowledge and treatment," she says. Few doctors investigate the man, Prof Nene stresses, even though "you find that a third of infertility lies with the male".

Losing her beloved father

Tragedy struck during her fourth year of training when her father was killed in a car hijacking. "Luckily a foundation set up by US philanthropists, Joy and Herb Kaiser, to address training inequalities in healthcare came to my rescue," she says.

The foundation sponsored her final two years of MBChB. She was employed by the Gauteng department of health during her specialisation training and the University of Pretoria funded her reproductive medicine sub-specialist training.

Improving access to fertility care through training

With her Discovery Foundation Academic Fellowship, Prof Nene will tackle a PhD focusing on the scarcity of local infertility data by quantifying the extent of the problem and its multiple causes.

"For example, if sexually transmitted infections are a cause of infertility, then we must put resources into prevention strategies. We must mitigate the suffering, identify couples with infertility, identify the causes and most importantly, improve access to infertility care through training," Prof Nene explains.

"I've helped the national department of health develop a training curriculum and guidelines on infertility. What drives me is giving back, especially to the poor and disadvantaged. It's what my father instilled in me," she adds.

"It's also about creating world-class service. We must address contraception, gender-based violence, infertility and termination of pregnancy, plus reproductive cancers," she concludes.

Professor Zozo Nene has received a 2021 Discovery Foundation Academic Fellowship to research the extent and burden of infertility in South Africa.