A career built at the sharp edge of care
Vanessa began her nursing career at Mediclinic Constantiaberg, one of Cape Town's leading private hospitals, working across some of the most demanding clinical environments in the building — the Medical Ward, Haematology Unit, Intensive Care Unit, Emergency Department, and Maternity. Each rotation deepened her understanding of how patients experience healthcare, and more importantly, how families do.
Working in the ICU and Emergency Department, Vanessa saw what happened when bystanders and families were unprepared for a medical emergency. She saw lives that could have been saved in those critical first minutes before an ambulance arrived. That observation would eventually shape an entirely new chapter of her career.
At the same time, working across the full spectrum of patient care, she witnessed the profound gap that opened up when patients were discharged home — particularly those with complex, chronic, or terminal conditions. Families were handed paperwork and a phone number. The clinical expertise they had relied on in hospital simply disappeared. That gap became the foundation of the second arm of her vision.
The timeline
Newly accredited by the Resuscitation Council of Southern Africa (RCSA) and the American Heart Association, and a new mother herself, Vanessa founded Safe2Grow — a training business born from a very personal observation: expectant parents and childminders had almost no access to basic CPR and First Aid training. Safe2Grow filled that gap, delivering practical, accessible emergency skills to families at the time when they needed them most.
As Safe2Grow grew, so did demand for training beyond the family setting — from corporates and healthcare professionals seeking the same rigorous, practically-grounded instruction. Rather than shift Safe2Grow away from its founding purpose, Vanessa kept it focused on family and parenting training, and launched Safe-Med Training Centre as a dedicated brand for the corporate and clinical professional market.
The launch of Safe-Med marked the official expansion into a full portfolio of accredited emergency and medical training — for businesses, healthcare institutions, and clinical professionals. Safe2Grow continued alongside it, serving families. The two brands operated in parallel, each with a clear focus, for many years — with Safe2Grow gradually folding into the Safe-Med brand over time.
Vanessa co-founded Integrated Clinical Solutions with the late Fiona Pieterse as an umbrella company, bringing together the training arms under one structure and adding a significant new dimension: the implementation of ERAS (Enhanced Recovery After Surgery) protocols in South Africa alongsite the practice of Dr. Matley and Partners. ERAS is a multidisciplinary, evidence-based approach to perioperative care that improves patient outcomes and reduces recovery time — work that reflected Vanessa's commitment to healthcare improvement at the systems level. SouthernCross Carers, the home-based care coordination arm, grew from the same ethos.
In partnership with Mediclinic Southern Africa, ICS delivered ESMOE (Essential Steps in the Management of Obstetric Emergencies) training to midwives and enrolled nurses across Mediclinic maternity units. This programme — focused on the recognition and management of obstetric emergencies — brought together Vanessa's clinical roots in maternity care and her expertise as an emergency skills instructor, at scale across one of South Africa's largest private hospital groups.
ICS is now an established part of Cape Town's clinical landscape — a trusted Mediclinic partner, Discovery Vitality programme provider, and a known name in corporate emergency preparedness and healthcare improvement. Through SouthernCross Carers, Vanessa continues to walk alongside patients and families through some of life's most profound moments, coordinating a network of specialist clinical partners around each individual's specific needs.
Her philosophy
Vanessa's approach is shaped by decades of watching how healthcare is actually experienced — not in policy documents or procedure manuals, but in the corridor conversations with anxious families, the moments of confusion at discharge, and the silent panic of a bystander watching someone collapse. Her belief is simple and consistent: knowledge saves lives, and dignity transforms care.
Both arms of ICS exist to close the distance between clinical expertise and the people who need it most — whether that is a parent learning CPR, a family navigating a parent's final weeks at home, or a corporate team preparing for a workplace emergency. The common thread is the desire to be hands-on, present, and deeply committed to the people she serves.