This is what I was talking about when I said there was bad news on the SA health department front last week.
But this sums things up best.
And here's an impassioned rebuke from the Treatment Action Campaign.
In short, Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge was the deputy health minister in the ANC. Manto Tshabalala-Msimang is the health minister. The two didn't get along. Not long ago, Tshabalala-Msimang was, along with President Thabo Mbeki, an ardent AIDS denialist, espousing the use of garlic, olive oil and beetroot as legitimate cures for HIV/AIDS and denouncing ARVs. Fortunately for South Africans, she was hospitalized due to illness a few years ago, and in that time Madlala-Routledge stepped in and completely revamped SA's HIV/AIDS treatment program. Madlala-Routledge is a major reason why prevalence rates are slowly declining among young people in SA, and why thousands more South Africans are on ARV treatment.
And she was fired by Mbeki on Women's Day, ostensibly over an unapproved trip to Spain for an HIV-vaccination conference at which she was a keynote speaker. But the whole thing is a bit screwy.
She also recently called the situation in some of SA's hospitals a "national emergency," because newborn babies were dying due to staff and equipment shortages. Her "over-hyped" language upset Mbeki and Tshabalala-Msimang. This, along with a long history of rabble-rousing and pot-stirring, seem to be the real reason for her firing.
All in all, a pretty shitty Women's Day in SA.
But now there's weird stuff coming out about Tshabalala-Msimang getting hospital staff to fetch her booze and food while she was in hospital two years ago. I don't know where this fits into the mess, except to remark on the karma.
If you're interested, check out the Mail and Guardian's site for tons of stories.
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5 comments:
wow, what a crappy story....
for realz
it'll be interesting to see how much blatant disregard for the country's HIV/AIDS crisis it takes to rock the ANC's political monopoly. but are there any alternatives? does anyone care about Inkatha anymore? bah, i don't know.
tangentially, your little weather icon says jozi's weather is "smoke". how worried should i be right now?
No, I don't think the ANC have any chance of not succeeding large in December, but there are lots of people who are unhappy with Mbeki. As for whether people care about other parties ... I'm still trying to grasp that, but the ANC is part of a tripartite governing alliance with the South African Communist Party and, I think, the Democratic Alliance. The Communist Party seems to have some popularity ... and I like them because their deputy president is a poet (Jeremy Cronin).
As for the "smoky" weather ... I have no idea. But it does sometimes feel like I'm sucking an exhaust pipe when I'm walking around town, so that might be it.
is that the same tripartite alliance that's existed since 94, and that zapiro depicted with the anc using the other two as footstools, or something like that? that's not too reassuring, especially since the anc's policies are about as communist as merkel's germany. hrm. but poet politicians are freakin awesome. like vaclav havel.
please watch out for your lungs. you may need them someday.
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