Former Roman Emperor once quipped that a man's worth is no greater than the worth of his ambitions.
The adage is true in the story of John Mwanzia, a former paratrooper who currently owns 7 multi-million private hospitals in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
Speaking to Chams Media TV, Mwanzia recounted his story, dating back to his heydays in the military.
As a paratrooper, he was based in Gilgil, Nairobi in the 20th para batallion for one year. At the time he was dispatched to Yugoslavia as part of a United Nations peacekeeping mission. After staying for a full year, Mwanzia returned to Gilgil where he delved to hang his boots.
"In life, somebody has to make tough decisions. I did not want to grow old in the military hence I opted for something else," he stated.
The former military man intimated that his work as a paratrooper stretched beyond normal parachute operations and involved high-intensity warfighting. He detailed that they would be deployed into enemy territory to conduct a wide range of missions such as prevention and pre-emption tasks.
"Initially, we were doing it for entertainment but during operations, we would use stealth tactics to observe enemies, especially at night," he noted.
In 2007, he opted to transition into business, and venture into the medical industry- despite lacking experience in the field.
Mwanzia noted that he was touched by the sorry state of places he had visited during peacekeeping missions and sought to contribute to changing lives after calling it quits in the military.
True to his word, Mwanzia currently owns seven private hospitals in DRC- and has spent over Ksh84 million in launching and setting up several branches across the vast country.
In addition, for effective operations, Mwanzia hosts servers in India and Russia. In some cases, he gets a second opinion from specialists in France and England on severe cases.
Currently, he has employed 300 Congolese and 7 Kenyans in the hospitals and seeks to recruit more professionals as he aims at enhancing affordable healthcare for the needy.
