People
Pauline Tlale - Managing Director
‘I have so much to share’ – Meet Pauline Tlale, Founder and MD of Daisy Medical Supplies, Gauteng’s upstart new medical supplies company
There’s a good reason her then-colleagues at Soweto’s Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital were still calling Pauline Tlale “Sister Tlale” years after she stopped doing bedside nursing. Sister Tlale, who is now Managing Director of Daisy Medical Supplies, is a Soweto-raised nursing and medical equipment specialist with 47 years of experience in working with medical equipment – and 30 of those years included working as a bedside nurse at Baragwanath, “Joburg Gen” (now Charlotte Maxeke), and many of Gauteng’s private hospitals.
“Although training medical professionals in how to use medical equipment ultimately became my biggest love, bedside nursing is what I studied and where my love of helping others came from,” Pauline says. “Even when I stopped doing bedside nursing, I spent so much time in wards and in every corner of Bara that my colleagues never stopped seeing me as ‘one of them’.”
Today, as MD of Daisy Medical Supplies, her company’s focus is on supplying both the private and public sector with a specialised range of medical devices and consumables.
The switch from bedside nursing to medical equipment supply and training seems to have been a natural – and inevitable – one. Pauline’s multiple stints at Baragwanath culminated in her being the hospital’s Deputy Director for the Medical Equipment Training Centre and Medical Workshop from 2013 until April 2022.
She first worked at Bara as a nursing student in 1976. Nine years later she moved to Johannesburg General Hospital. “By then I had two young children, but between 1985 and 1988 I took on a degree and diploma in Intensive Care Nursing Science – while also working full-time in bedside nursing. I then graduated with both a degree and diploma in 1988!”
Her natural love of teaching led to her being headhunted by the University of the Free State (UFS), where she lectured second-year Nursing students from 1995 to 1996. “I had been appointed as Joburg Gen’s first black Clinical Facilitator, around 1990,” she remembers. “I trained students from various institutions, and although the appointment caused shock in some circles, some of the UFS students went back and said, ‘There’s a Clinical Facilitator at Joburg Gen who is so good!’ That’s how I found myself on a new path of being a teacher in higher education.”
After personal setbacks necessitated a move back to Johannesburg in 1996, Pauline was at a crossroads. “I was contemplating leaving lecturing, but I also didn’t want to go back to bedside nursing. Then I bumped into an ex-student who asked me to come work with them in ICU.”
This encounter led to her next inspiring chapter. “I had been daydreaming about being a medical sales representative and travelling the world. One day while I was working at Bedford Gardens Hospital a medical rep was showing staff how to use a ventilator. This very clever rep, Eleanor, would become one of my closest friends, but that day I kept challenging her. When she finished I said, ‘By the way, you’re doing my job.’”
Pauline narrates how Eleanor told her then CEO that same day about the “brilliant nurse” who knew so much about medical equipment. “She told him about me on Tuesday, I had an interview on Thursday, and was employed on the spot.”
For the next 15 years she worked primarily as a medical representative for that medical supplies company, based in Randburg, selling medical equipment and providing training.
“I always felt I have so much to share,” she says. “When I returned to government hospitals in 2010, I requested a transfer from ICU to Clinical Teaching. Now I wasn’t just teaching nurses; I was teaching cleaners, porters, heads of hospitals. The Gauteng Department of Health heard about me and asked me to help with training at various hospitals.”
Her second chapter at Baragwanath started in March 2013, when she was headhunted by the new CEO. “I became part of his 100-day turnaround strategy. I had suggested that the hospital needed a medical equipment training centre, and then I was asked to start it and run it!”
The new job proved to be perfect for her experience and passions. “I had to make sure Bara has the equipment it needs, that it’s the right equipment, that the specifications were right for specific departments, and I had to make sure people knew how to use the equipment, and ensure the equipment is always functional.”
Her no-nonsense attitude and commitment to the greater good again caught the eye of the Gauteng Department of Health and the National Treasury, who asked Pauline to sit on bid specification and bid evaluation committees to assist in the qualification of appropriate medical equipment for provincial and national hospitals.
She postponed retirement in 2020 to help Bara get through the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic and to continue imparting her skills and expertise on the next generation of staff. She ultimately left the hospital at the end of April 2022. After a well-deserved break she has been pouring her considerable energy and expertise into Daisy Medical Supplies. Her new venture is a perfect fit, combining her gift for teaching with her passions for nursing, hospitals, and the products Daisy Medical supplies.
As for why the name Daisy Medical Supplies? “My son once told me that in Norse mythology the daisy is Goddess Freya’s sacred flower and represents childbirth, motherhood, and new beginnings. Daisy Medical Supplies represents a new beginning in my life; one built with gentleness but underpinned by strong determination.”
Kgomotso Tlale - Sales Director
‘I’m all about helping you find solutions’ – meet Kgomotso Tlale, Sales Director at Daisy Medical Supplies
“Where my mom loves training, I love selling, and I love giving help where I can. Whether I can help you directly or indirectly, I like finding solutions. I might not sell you something, but if you phone Kgomotso, I will help you.”
Kgomotso Tlale is a natural fit to work with and complement her mother Pauline Tlale’s skills. As Sales Director and Managing Director respectively of Gauteng-based medical supplies company Daisy Medical Supplies, the pair have combined experience of more than 35 years in selling medical equipment and training hospital and clinic staff in how to use what they sell.
Born in Soweto in 1981, she attended Roedean School in Parktown. “It was convenient and quite easy for me to walk to my mom at Joburg General Hospital (now Charlotte Maxeke), where she was working as a nurse.”
After matriculating in 2000, she studied sound engineering for a year, but was soon drawn to trying her hand at entrepreneurship. “I opened an African clothing shop in Alberton City Shopping Centre. Clothing is another passion I share with my mom – alongside our careers in selling medical equipment. While running the shop, I used to go help mom out, teaching the staff at her first business how to use a computer, and learning about medical equipment from my mom, then teaching others. We’ve been working together on and off forever!”
When Pauline’s first business was closed in 2004 the ripple effects led to the closure of the clothing store as well. “I was home and went to work with my mom as a freelancer at the medical supplies company she was working at.”
Over the next 13 years Kgomotso started working as a salesperson across several industries before finally settling into the sale of medical supplies. “My mom left the medical supplies industry to return to ICU and training at hospitals in 2010, whereas my journey led me into a sales representative role, in which I worked and learned until I re-joined my mother in launching Daisy Medical Supplies.”
Finding solutions is what drives her, and she believes it’s the secret to her success as Sales Director. “There are a lot of problems, especially in our public sector,” she says. “You want to walk in and say, ‘What is the problem? What can I help you with?’ and by the end of the day be able to say that everything in that ward is running smoothly, everything is perfect.”
She’s excited at joining her mother in an industry they know inside-out. “We’ve been making contacts and sourcing suppliers locally and overseas, which we both enjoy because we love connecting with people. We both have relationships in the industry and at hospitals all over the country that will stand us in good stead as we set off on this thrilling journey of expanding our business horizons.”