SA health dept’s reputation in tatters
This has been one of the worst weeks ever for the National Health Department’s already tattered reputation. Director-General Thami Mseleku outrageously ordered provincial health officers not to comment in the media about HIV/AIDS. According to the Sunday Times, Mseleku made the order because he regarded the comments of Stephen Lewis, the United Nations special envoy for AIDS in Africa, at the Toronto HIV/AIDS conference earlier this month, as “particularly scathing and derogatory about the South African government”.
Among the organisations that have criticised Mseleku’s unprecedented action are the Freedom of Expression Institute (FXI) and the Open Democracy Advice Centre (ODAC), which argue that if this gagging is upheld, our democracy would be undermined. In a joint statement, the organisations said:
“If allowed to go unchallenged, the move will set an extremely negative precedent for freedom of expression in our public service. It means employees will have to refrain from any form of commentary or reasonable criticism of their own government for fear of being dismissed. This is surely not what a democracy is about.”
The FXI and ODAC have requested that the department stops any further attempts at gagging or censoring its employees.
Stacey-Leigh Joseph of the watchdog body the Public Service Accountability Monitor (PSAM) was similarly quoted by Sapa as saying:
“In terms of section 32(1) of the Constitution ‘everyone has the right of access to any information held by the state’. Furthermore, section 195 clearly states that in order to foster this right and to act transparently, the public administration must foster transparency by providing timely, accessible and accurate information’ to the public.”
In the same week as Mseleku’s edict, a group of 137 South African delegates to the Toronto conference have sought refugee status in Canada, claiming that South Africa’s policies on HIV/AIDS put their lives in danger. The BBC on Tuesday reported that:
A Canadian immigration lawyer, Michael Battista, said the South African women face severe stigma and discrimination at home that amounts to persecution - loss of homes, loss of jobs and in some cases threats of violence.
Meanwhile, back in South Africa, researcher Professor Gita Ramjee presented startling statistics to the eThekwini Municipality’s Health, Safety and Social Services Committee. She said that in some parts of KwaZulu-Natal the HIV-prevalence level in women was as high as 70 percent. Ramjee was quoted in The Mercury as saying:
“The figures we are finding are unbelievable, and when I present them at international meetings, people are shocked. These figures are not even found in the high-risk areas of East Africa.”
Also this week, more than 80 international experts sent a letter to President Thabo Mbeki in which they condemned the government’s health policy as “disastrous and pseudo-scientific”. Among the experts is 1975 Nobel Prize-winner for Medicine, David Baltimore, and the developer of the first HIV blood test and co-discoverer of HIV as the cause of AIDS, Robert Gallo. These experts have also supported the Treatment Action Campaign’s call for Tshabalala-Msimang’s sacking. In another report by the BBC the experts were quoted as saying:
“To have as health minister a person who now has no international respect is an embarrassment to the South African government.”
The scientists said they endorsed the comments of Stephen Lewis at the Toronto conference. The article continues:
“It is the only country in Africa … whose government is still obtuse, dilatory and negligent about rolling out treatment,” said Lewis. “It is the only country in Africa whose government continues to promote theories more worthy of a lunatic fringe than of a concerned and compassionate state.”
One wonders despairingly if our government’s reputation around HIV/AIDS will improve. Telling employees not to talk about HIV/AIDS certainly won’t help. We need actions – like accelerated ARV rollout, better prevention campaigns, and better leadership from our politicians – to speak louder than words. – Itumeleng Makgobathe