Staff Farewells Dr Hazel Bradley Hazel Bradley joined SOPH in 2003, having obtained her MPH through the School in 1999. In her PhD thesis completed in 2013 she considered the evolving roles and competencies of district pharmacists in Cape Town’s primary health care facilities. Ensuring accessible, good quality pharmaceutical services at a primary level has long been Hazel’s vision, having worked as a pharmacist in a poorly-resourced setting prior to joining the SOPH. This led her to establishing Pharmaceutical Public Health as an important area of specialisation within SOPH – and she presented several short courses with UWC School of Pharmacy colleagues. She also worked closely with Prof Richard Laing of Boston University and Dr Raffaella Ravinetto from the Institute of Tropical Medicine, Antwerp – and has been involved in various initiatives in Southern and Eastern Africa, focusing on strengthening health supply chain management and pharmacovigilance and regulatory capacity. Always deeply committed to her role as educator, as senior co-ordinator of the School’s academic programme, Hazel valued team work and remaining accountable to her colleagues, while never being afraid to try out innovative ways of teaching and learning as an essential part of professional practice. The many academic and research partnerships that have profiled SOPH within the field of pharmaceutical public health in sub-Saharan Africa is, as Assoc Prof Renier Coetzee of UWC School of Pharmacy suggested, a “legacy of Hazel Bradley”! Hazel will continue to retain research links with the SOPH during her retirement.
Prof Diane Cooper Di joined the SOPH in 2015, having worked in our sister Department at the University of Cape Town for 25 years where she taught and researched in the Women’s Health Research Unit. Di’s focus on women’s health has included focusing on the social determinants, gender issues and sexual and reproductive health – engaging with issues like contraception, pregnancy and female cancers. More recently, her focus has been on the intersection between sexual and reproductive health (SRH) and HIV, particularly the SRH needs of youth living with HIV and teenage pregnancy. This has involved her internationally – for instance as a member of a Task Team based at Harvard University looking at maternal health and HIV. She has also worked with a number of local and international NGOs. For many years, Di participated in committees of the National Department of Health – and in the province, she was involved in the original rollout of the Termination of Pregnancy and in task teams addressing the integration of sexual and reproductive health and HIV. Di will retain research links with the SOPH during her retirement.
On 26 January 2021 we lost our colleague Sheryl Cordon who, together with Nadia Follentine, looked after the security in the School of Public Health building for many years. Having lost her husband to COVID early on during the pandemic, Sheryl also contracted COVID, developing complications which eventually overwhelmed her. Sheryl had worked at UWC as a campus security officer since 2012 and had been responsible for the SOPH building for much of this time. We all knew Sheryl as a quiet, always helpful, gentle presence in the School, and we miss her enormously.
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