31/08/2026
For 47 years, our Wide Horizon Hospice General Manager, Sr Margie Bollman, has answered a calling that has taken her through the wards of both private and public healthcare, and into the heart of one of the most compassionate fields in medicine, palliative care.
For more than a decade of that remarkable career, she has been a pillar of Stepping Stone Hospice, bringing with her a wealth of clinical knowledge, hands-on nursing experience, and a deep well of empathy for patients and families facing life-limiting illness.
Our GM's journey began at JG Strijdom Hospital, now known as Helen Joseph Hospital, where she applied for and completed her Diploma in Nursing and Midwifery, the foundation of a career spent bringing life into the world and, in more recent years, walking alongside patients and families as they approach its end with dignity and comfort.
Nursing, she says, has always been her passion and her calling, and it shows in every step of the path she has walked since.
At Stepping Stone, that path started at the bottom, doing home-based care, going out into the community and sitting with patients and families in their own homes. From there she was promoted to IPU Manager, and today she serves as General Manager for both Wide Horizon and Stepping Stone, a journey that reflects not only her clinical skill but her steady, quiet leadership over the years.
Sr Margie has also spoken about how deeply personal this calling is to her.
Having walked alongside patients through their final days, and having lost her own husband, she says that experience prepared her in a way nothing else could to work in a space like this, bringing a rare depth of understanding to the care she gives and the teams she leads.
Her qualifications tell their own story of a career built on continuous growth: a Certificate in Palliative Care, equipping her with the specialised skills needed to provide holistic care to those in their most vulnerable moments, and a Certificate in Marketing, a reflection of just how far her capabilities extend beyond the clinical setting.
During her time as IPU Manager, she took on the work of updating policies and procedures to align with the required standards, work that ultimately led to the hospice [Stepping Stone] achieving 5-Star APCC and COHSASA accreditation, among the highest marks of quality in hospice care.
She has since gone on to complete training in APCC accreditation itself, and is currently busy with an auditor's course, a qualification soon to be added to her ever-growing list of accolades.
Having worked across both the private and public healthcare sectors, Sr Margie brings a uniquely well-rounded perspective to her role, shaped by years of exposure to different systems, resources and patient needs.
Beyond her professional achievements, she is a mother of two and grandmother to two beautiful grandchildren, and it is perhaps this role, as much as any qualification, that speaks to the nurturing spirit she brings to her work every day.
Forty-seven years in nursing is no small feat. It is a career built on countless quiet moments of compassion and resilience, often unseen, but always felt by those in her care.
