By Phindile Ngubane
Some members of Parliament have criticised President Thabo Mbeki for refusing to authorise the use of anti-Aids drugs in state hospitals while they and their colleagues have access to the drugs.
Parliament's medical aid scheme, Parmed, has an Aid for Aids (AfA) scheme which entitles members to claim for antiretroviral drugs for up to R35 000 a year. So far 68 of the scheme's 2000 members had signed up.
Parmed serves all members of Parliament and provincial legislatures, the president and members of the cabinet, as well as constitutional and High Court judges.
Democratic Alliance leader Tony Leon said the government was willing to take action on Aids only when the crisis had direct implications for its own members.
Leon said if Mbeki allowed the implementation of an AZT programme in state hospitals it would save the lives of 110 000 babies over the next 10 years.
Bantu Holomisa, president of the United Democratic Movement, said the government's failure to ensure that the poor had the same access to antiretrovirals as the rich, "including MPs", was discrimination.
Inkatha Freedom Party MP Ruth Rabinowitz said that if there were cases proving that AZT prevented mother-to-child transmission, it was the government's duty to save babies from infection.
She said it was unfair that MPs had access to private health care while a majority of South Africans had to rely on a public health system that did not provide quality services.
But the health department's director of the national HIV/Aids programme, Dr Nono Simelela, said AZT had not been authorised because there was no scientific evidence on its effectiveness.