Johannesburg - South African-born Dr Matshidiso Moeti on Tuesday became the World Health’s Organisation’s regional director for Africa.
As she takes the reins of one of the WHO’s most important offices at a pivotal time, the doctor from KwaThema in Ekurhuleni says she has never forgotten the lessons South Africa taught her.
Moeti was born in Springs, and until the age of 10, she was raised in nearby KwaThema, where her parents - both doctors - owned a family practice.
Her parents instilled an appreciation for many things in their oldest daughter, chief among them being social justice and education.
“They ran a practice in a poor community, so one was very aware of the struggles of families,” said Moeti hours after beginning her five-year term as regional director in the WHO’s Brazzaville, Congo, office.
“By the time I was 7 or 8 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 fortunate to go to medical school and qualify as a doctor.
“He believed 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 such as TB and smallpox.
“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 WHO has been heavily criticised for its slow response to West Africa’s deadly Ebola outbreak.
As the WHO undergoes reforms to improve its emergency response, Moeti says she is keen to contribute to a leaner, more responsive WHO.
She is also hopeful that universal healthcare schemes such as South Africa’s National Health Insurance, will take hold in the continent as the world enters into new development goals.
West African countries declared Ebola an emergency last year.
However, the WHO waited until August 8 to declare the virus a health emergency of international concern, by which time about 1 400 people had died.
“The speed at which it spread and the scale to which it grew took the WHO by surprise,” says Moeti, adding that, at a special high-level meeting recently, the WHO vowed to strengthen its capacity physically and financially to respond to outbreaks like Ebola.
“The WHO is in the middle of a reform process and it is my intention to fast-track the work being done, especially in regard to human resources.”
As the WHO looks at how to restructure human resources for faster emergency response, Moeti says she plans to ensure staff members at the regional and country offices are leaders in their fields with the capacity to respond to crises.
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