Gunshots and fear were part of Dr Joy Saville’s everyday reality growing up in Mitchells Plain. Born in the heart of the Cape Flats, she faced more than just the rough streets. Balancing her ambition to become a doctor with financial struggles and health challenges, life threw everything it could at her. But Dr Saville didn’t just rise above it all – she shattered every obstacle, proving that nothing could stand in the way of her dreams.
Now, based in Northcliff, Johannesburg, Saville works as a locum GP. She admits that the journey hasn’t been easy but being a doctor was always part of her dream.
“Medicine has always been the plan,” she says. “In high school, I briefly considered a career in drama, but my parents quickly steered me back to medicine.”
Rising from the Cape Flats
Saville attended Windsor High School in Lansdowne and matriculated in 2002. The following year, she enrolled at the University of Cape Town (UCT) but transitioned to UWC in 2004, where she studied until 2009.
“I grew up in a so-called ‘coloured’ community called Mitchells Plain in Cape Town, where gunshots often pierced the night.”
Despite the violence, she says there was a strong sense of community.
After studying for a bachelor of science at UCT, she discovered natural medicine. This path gave her the title of “doctor” without the emotional strain she feared from public healthcare.
“It wasn’t common to dream of becoming a doctor where I came from.”
Dr Joy Saville
Though the programme was intended to take five years, she admits to failing her second year due to distractions. She got married in December 2010, completed her degree, then moved to Johannesburg with her husband and began working at the Institute of Tibb, a public benefit organisation.
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A journey of revelation
However, life’s challenges awaited her.
In 2013, Saville treated an eight-year-old boy diagnosed with pulmonary hypertension, a terminal condition with limited treatment options for children. “He passed away a month later, shattering my world.”
She adds, “Soon after, I became sought after by parents of terminally ill children, desperately seeking hope, but I was too depressed to continue seeing patients.”
Saville notes that years later, during prayer, she had a revelation: “I was not responsible for life or death, nor could I escape the trauma that comes with the field. There would be losses, but far more gains.
“I felt deeply that the Holy Spirit would walk with me, providing refuge and strength.”
With renewed clarity, she returned to practice as a natural medicine doctor. Her first patient, she says, was a two-year-old girl who had recently completed chemotherapy and a lobectomy for lung cancer.
Saville says she researched extensively about her condition but felt an increasing hunger for more knowledge, experience, and academic guidance.
In 2016, she decided to apply to the Graduate Entry Medical Programme (GEMP) at Wits University, which allows graduates to enter the third year of medicine.
“I was 31 years old, a mother to a two-year-old, and filled with fear that I would be rejected from my lifelong dream.”
Emotional and financial struggles
A few months later, her mother was diagnosed with an aggressive form of breast cancer and scheduled for a radical mastectomy. She lived in Cape Town, and Saville feared that studying full-time would mean giving up the financial freedom to visit her.
“My mother was steadfast – she insisted her illness wouldn’t obstruct my dream and gave me her blessing and full support.”
In October of that year, she learned she had passed the WAPT. By December, she received the news that she had been accepted to study medicine at Wits University. However, financial challenges were waiting for her.
“My husband was horrified. His salary had been cut by 60%, and his company was undergoing retrenchments. We had no means to pay the R10 000 registration fee, let alone the R70 000 tuition.”
Dr Joy Saville
Luckily, her tax returns covered her registration, and the Al-Imdaad Foundation awarded her a bursary that covered all her fees, books, and medical equipment.
Balancing motherhood, medicine, and mission
In April 2017, her husband was retrenched, and she had to return to work while juggling motherhood and medical studies. The Vuya Foundation stepped in, providing additional financial support to help cover their living expenses.
“My journey through medicine was one of the most challenging experiences of my life. But every obstacle became a testament to God’s faithfulness.
“Today, I serve in private practice, but my vision is to change healthcare in South Africa – making it accessible and affordable, merging the philosophies of natural and Western medicine to deliver compassionate, individualised care.”
Working alongside her friend, Dr Taz Emeran, she says, “Together, we share a vision of community upliftment, and our goal is to provide accessible, quality, and compassionate healthcare to all South Africans.”
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