JOHANNEBSURG - Mediclinic International has named a new chief executive, Dr Ronnie van der Merwe, as a successor to the departing Danie Meintjes.
Meintjes announced in July last year that he would be stepping down after serving as chief executive for eight years.
Van der Merwe is no stranger to the group, having joined Mediclinic in 1999 and its executive team in 2008.
He is currently the chief clinical officer but will assume his new duties at the beginning of June.
Meintjes will remain an executive director of the group until the conclusion of the company’s annual general meeting on July 25.
The incoming chief executive has been credited with establishing and building up the clinical information, advanced analytics, health information management and clinical services functions at Mediclinic, where he has been group chief clinical officer since 2007.
He will lead a team that has operations in Switzerland, southern Africa (South Africa and Namibia) and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
Its core purpose is to enhance the quality of life of patients by providing acute care, specialist oriented, multidisciplinary healthcare services.
Mediclinic also holds a 29.9percent stake in Spire Healthcare Group, a London Stock Exchange-listed and UK-based private healthcare group.
In Meintjes’s period at the helm, the group grew beyond South Africa’s borders and was able to make international acquisitions. Mediclinic acquired Al Noor for $2.2 billion (R25.74bn) in 2015 under Meintjes’s leadership.
Today, Mediclinic comprises 75 hospitals and 29 clinics.
Hirslanden operates 17 private acute-care facilities and four clinics in Switzerland, Mediclinic Southern Africa operates 49 hospitals and two day clinics in South Africa and 3 hospitals in Namibia, while Mediclinic Middle East operates six hospitals and 23 clinics in the UAE.
The group will also make several changes to its board and its committees. Dr Felicity Harvey will take over from Dr Edwin Hertzog as chairperson of the clinical performance and sustainability committee, while Dr Muhadditha Al Hashimi will join the committee as an additional member, both with effect from the beginning of April. The group said Dr Hertzog would remain a member of the committee.
The group also announced the departure of Nandi Mandela and Professor Robert Leu, who will retire as non-executive directors after the group’s AGM.
The group said both Mandela and Leu would also retire from all relevant board committees, and that further appointments would be made to those committees in due course.