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 Call for an Aids truth commission
    Sipokazi Maposa
    October 30 2008 at 12:30PM
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South Africa needs to have a Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) to examine the way in which the government has dealt with the HIV and Aids pandemic over the past decade, to help rebuild trust between the health sector and grassroots communities, says a Cape Town activist.

Speaking at a conference reviewing the TRC recommendations and the need for redress, Cape Town Aids activist and lawyer Fatima Hassan, who works for the Aids Law Project, said the government denialism projected by former president Thabo Mbeki and former health minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang had tarnished the image of the country's health sector.

To allow for it to be rebuilt, the perpetrators, victims and beneficiaries of the denialism needed to come forward.
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Tshabalala-Msimang has been widely accused by activists of spreading confusion about HIV and Aids with her distrust of anti-retroviral medication and support for nutritional "remedies" such as garlic, beetroot, lemon, olive oil and the African potato.

The four-day conference, which is being held at the V&A Waterfront, has been organised by the Institute for Justice and Reconciliation, the Foundation for Human Rights and the Desmond Tutu Peace Centre to review the TRC recommendations a decade after the report was handed to the government.

Hassan said such a commission, which could be headed by human rights bodies such as the SA Human Rights Commission, could attempt to engage the government, communities, health workers, scientists and researchers to discuss the impact of these denials and how to move forward with a clean slate.

She said one of the major challenges faced by the leadership of the health department was the "huge gap" between health services received by the rich and the poor, which contributed to increased death rates among the poor and children younger than five.

About 260 mothers, babies and children died every day in South Africa.

Lack of healthcare was also exacerbated by other social issues such as unavailability of public transport to health facilities.

"While my rich friends lived longer, many of my poor friends have died because they didn't have access to anti-retroviral drugs. For most people living in underprivileged communities there's no free transport to go to healthcare facilities to get ARVs," Hassan said.

"These people are just too poor to afford transport fares and they end up dying at home without getting treatment."

Calling for the introduction of national health insurance, she said user fees in the health sector should also be addressed.

"Some people are too scared to go to hospital for fear of paying user fees. They get embarrassed if they can't afford to pay R75 admission fee," she said.

Hassan also slammed the public health sector for discrimination and a lack of accountability, charging that foreigners were being denied ARVs and turned away from hospitals just because of their nationality.

Mark Blecher, director of social services in the National Treasury, told the meeting that while the government had made good progress in some parts of the health industry, including access to healthcare, malaria control, and measles and malnutrition reduction, the rising death rates associated with HIV and Aids and tuberculosis were still a concern.

Another concern was public health sector staff shortages, as a result of people emigrating or moving into the private sector, which had resulted in 30 000 posts remaining vacant.



    • This article was originally published on page 13 of Cape Argus on October 30, 2008
Showing page 1 of 2 comment pages, 12 total comments
55 Weeks ago JJJ wrote :
Please!!!! Not another TRC at the tax payers expense. Just get on with it and rectify the situation. No one will be hanged, jailed or even flogged, so why the waste of time and money.
55 Weeks ago Mochinimix wrote :
Nearly 25 years, still no one proved to the world, how, or even if HIV causes AIDS, The latest question doing rounds in the US is "where is the virus". Clearly South Africans should be asking this question, than to promote awareness on a virus that no one, including its real discoverer, Dr Luc Montagnier, or Dr Robert Gallo, ever proved to exist. After 25 years of official scaremongering about societies being ravaged by the disease - with salacious, tombstone-illustrated government propaganda warning people to wear a condom or "die of ignorance" - the head of the World Health Organization's HIV/AIDS department says there is no need for heterosexuals to fret. Dr Kevin de Cock, who has headed the global battle against AIDS, said that outside very poor African countries, AIDS is confined to "high-risk groups," and even in these communities it remains quite rare. In other words, all that hysterical fear mongering about AIDS spreading among sexed-up western youth was a pack of lies. Back in 1987, Dr Gordon Stewart, Emeritus Professor of Public Health at the University of Glasgow, tried unsuccessfully to point out that AIDS predictions didn't add up and that the notion of a global AIDS epidemic among heterosexual populations was at best a huge mistake, or at worst, a dishonest marketing scheme. According to the new version of orthodox AIDS-think, unlike other people in other parts of the world, heterosexual Black Africans still remain at high risk for AIDS. Dr. James Chin, former epidemiologist for the World Health Organization, claims this is because 20% to 40% of the adult population in sub-Saharan Africa participates in "multiple concurrent overlapping relationships" involving sexual intercourse with several different people and several changing partners every few weeks. The startling concept of African AIDS epidemics due to wildly promiscuous Blacks and the remarkable admission that 20 years of global AIDS policy followed a false premise have yet to be reported by any major media. Too many people lost their lives due to this tragic medical blunder. The most important thing is to not stop questioning. I salute Thabo Mbeki and Dr Manto Tshabalala - Msimang for their efforts in saving lives, mainly poor blacks, from taking poisonous HIV drugs that have healed anyone but killed many.
55 Weeks ago Perusalem wrote :
you people still believe there's denialism perpetrated from Mbeki's and Manto's ministries? There's big going on with this Aids and HIV campaigns. This is a mission to attack any young governments like S.A, Swaziland etc. to support Aids activists to fatten their pockets(distracting young economies with expensive demands). First it is Doctors without borders, they come and introduce anti-retrovirals(drug pushing), if the government objects, our sick people are used in media to blakmail/threaten our government that it doesn't care about its own people. So stop this nonsense and let us go back to our roots. Switch off all channels since they are originally for military purposes and start healing the nation each day at the time. I promise you that it will be the last time you hear about Aids pandemic. Our simple TV, radio stations are now guns against us South Africans, once someone say something in media, it's funny how it gets support by the same locusts of the same calibre(money mongers). We studied the ongoing of the world to the course of all death, hailing and gnashing of teeth and the reason behind it. Becareful the government is the Lord's and all in it. He is the creator and as I write this comment the time of his hour is nearing, stop making media noise and clean your act. Deny Aids and Hiv, it's going to kill you. To deny it, you first deny its existence, cancel the U.S policies(campaigns rights), then come together as South Africans and no one will penetrate you, not even death itself.
55 Weeks ago Robin Grant wrote :
To be fair, a lot of the delay surrounded the exorbitant prices that the pharmaceutical companies wanted to charge for the Anti retrovirals. The delays caused by these companies were responsible for most of the deaths. The prices forced government to look at alternative treatments simply because the asking price for the medicines would have put a huge strain on the economy. It was only after we got to the point where government threatened to ignore patent claims, and buy generics, did the pharmaceutical companies come to the party.
55 Weeks ago Anonymous wrote :
This is funny... how about a commission for victims of crime as well, seeing as we moving to the business of "talk shop" & there's denial that crime is a huge problem.Wonder how much money was spent on this; could it not have been used differently...?
55 Weeks ago Anon wrote :
How does the Govtment strategy of Abstein, Be faithfull and condomise project denialism? You are only interested in ridiculing the African medicine thats so much for the Rainbow Nation of Mandela that for it to work the African People must continually submit to the "superior" western beliefs and if one is raising an alternative point of view then no this is anti-civilisation. History will be the judge and I'm glad to say it will favour us.
55 Weeks ago Anon wrote :
How sad when the poor health of the HIV+ people is being made a political football by these modern day Activities. When did HIV start to spread in SA? Surely not 10 yrs back as this cheap Activist would like us to believe!! C'mon stop trivialising the lives of our people. Why 10 yrs?? Tell us why?? Its only bcoz u only interested in going after Tboz, get a life, he's no longer the President, happy?? Now u want to dance on top of his grave?? Please get another hobby.
55 Weeks ago Anti Manto wrote :
This is a brilliant suggestion and will be well supported by family and friends who lost loved ones and were laid to rest through this terrible desease to which the ANC Government must be held responsible. Manto should stand trial and if covicted, must eat garlic and beetroot for the rest of her life in prison. AIDS is for real and not something to ignore.
55 Weeks ago Nkalakatha wrote :
I dont think money must be wasted to let people come forward who felt betrayed by Manto and Thabo. Just think how many millions of family will pitch up to tell their heartbroken tales..... Rather let the new Minister of Health work on a plan to help people living with HIV to have better lives and healthy food to eat and let mobile clinics go out to very far away rural areas to ease transport problems. Still a long road to go.....
55 Weeks ago FedUp 2 wrote :
Why this now?. Is the ANC stooping that low? Clearly this thing is all about finding something to tarnish Thabo Mbeki seeing that all other efforts have failed, the presumably “dead snake” is well and alive after all. Zuma will be familiar with the Zulu saying that goes “ wathinta inyoka isemgodini uthembeni na ? “. Please let TM enjoy his forced retirement. All Governement policies in the past were not of an individual/s but were those of the ruling party.
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