Top WHO post for SA-born doctor

Matshidiso Moeti

Matshidiso Moeti

Published Jan 28, 2015

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A SOUTH African-born doctor yesterday became the World Health’s Organisation’s (WHO) regional director for Africa. As she takes the reins Matshidiso Moeti, a doctor from KwaThema, east of Johannesburg, says she has never forgotten the lessons South Africa taught her.

Moeti was born in Springs, Ekurhuleni. Until the age of 10, she was raised in nearby KwaThema, where her parents – both doctors – owned a family practice.

Deeply committed to public health, Moeti’s parents instilled an appreciation for many things in their oldest daughter. But chief among them were social justice and education, she says.

“They ran a practice in a poor community so one was very aware of the struggles of families,” said Moeti.

“Even by the time I was seven or eight years old, I remember reading The Post newspaper and being very much aware of the political system in place, aware of what was essentially an unjust society… this influenced me a lot.”

Hailing from a poor family in a rural community on the Botswana border, Moeti’s father had been lucky to go to medical school and qualify as a doctor. “He believed very strongly in education as a way to transform people’s lives.”

When the 1954 Bantu Education Act threatened to rob his children of the same education, Moeti’s father moved the family to Botswana. There, her mother helped introduce family planning services while her father worked on infectious diseases like tuberculosis and small pox.

“I remember him going away for weeks on end into the bush to provide clinical services to people in rural areas,” said Moeti, adding that her mother’s position in the Botswana ministry of health meant she attended the famous 1978 Alma-Ata conference that in some ways set the stage for the type of National Health Insurance South Africa seeks to introduce.

Moeti takes the reins of the WHO’s Africa office at a time when the organisation has been heavily criticised for its slow response to West Africa’s deadly Ebola outbreak.

Moeti says she is keen to contribute to a leaner, more responsive WHO.

She is also hopeful that universal health-care schemes like the NHI will take hold on the continent.

West African countries declared Ebola an emergency in 2014. The WHO, however, waited until August 8, 2014 to declare the virus a health emergency of international concern, by which time about 1 400 people had died.

“The WHO is in the midst of a reform process and it is my intention to fast-track the work, especially in regards to human resources.”

She also takes the helm as the world prepares to usher in new global development targets to replace the Millennium Development Goals.

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