Treatment Action Campaign

The following article, authored by Executive Director of the AIDS Law Project Mark Heywood, was originally published in the Cape Times and Star newspapers on 11 March 2009:

Somewhere around 1 November 2008 the death penalty was reintroduced in the Free State. Quietly, with the stroke of a pen, an official in the Department of Health in Bloemfontein signed a memorandum introducing a moratorium declaring that no new patients should be put on anti-retroviral (ARV) treatment. This was to be for the next five months – until the new financial year, April 1 2009 -- when the funds would return.

Who was this official? Did he or she have a God complex, or was he an AIDS denialist who didn’t believe that ARV treatment keeps people alive? Certainly a few of them still lurk within the corridors of the Free State Health department. In fact at the same time that ARV treatment was stopped an official provincial government publication was promoting garlic and the remedies of Tine van Der Mass.
Or did the official just not understand the law, the Constitution, the meaning of the right to health, or the huge life and death implications of the piece of paper that he signed that day?

TAC has taken to the streets in the past week to demonstrate our frustration with the needless pain and death caused by ART delays, and to show solidarity with patients in the Free State who have been denied access to essential healthcare services.

TAC’s first action was a march which began inside Pelonomi Hospital in the Free State. The march was organised by comrade Sello Mokhalipi and led by TAC Chairperson Nonkosi Khumalo and Deputy Chairperson Tebogo Klaas. Activists marched to the headquarters of the MEC for Health, Sakhiwo Belot, where a memo was presented by Nonkosi to a representative of MEC Belot. The memo condemned the ART moratorium and demanded its immediate abolition. The memo also made demands for more information about the budgeting shortfall, and for far greater accountability in the Free State Department of Health.

TAC’s second action this week was a picket outside parliament in Cape Town, chosen for its proximity to Finance Minister Trevor Manuel as he delivered his annual budget speech which outlined government’s health expenditure plan for the next financial year. The picket was also attended by activists from COSATU, the Social Justice Coalition and other civil society partners.

On 19 December 2009 TAC wrote to Sakhiwo Belot, MEC for Health for the Free State Province, asking for clarity on a range of issues relating to the Free State’s critical, life threatening shortages of antiretroviral drugs. After having failed to receive a response from MEC Belot’s offices, TAC sent a follow-up letter on 21 January 2009, the deadline for response for which was yesterday, 26 January 2009. We are still awaiting a reply.

Statistics South Africa released the Mortality and causes of death in South Africa, 2006: Findings from death notification report last week. The statistical release presents data on mortality and causes of death based on all death notification forms received from the Department of Home Affairs for deaths that occurred in 2006.

The previous mortality report included deaths up to and including 2005. This one updates that report by including 2006. The report confirms the effects of the HIV epidemic that have already been shown in previous mortality reports:

TAC has a made a submission to the Department of Health (DoH) and the South African National AIDS Council (SANAC) on the new draft DoH Guidelines on the Management of HIV in Health Facilities (Guidelines). The submission presented yesterday (16 May) by Zackie Achmat at a meeting of SANAC's Techinal Task Team on HIV Treatment, Care and Support. Later this month the submission will also be presented at the SANAC Plenary.

The AIDS Law Project (ALP) has written a memorandum explaining the serious problems with the antiretroviral tender that the state has put out.

 By Gordon Tlama Mthembu, TAC Ekhurleleni District Co-ordinator

This is an unedited version of a letter published in City Press on 3 September 2006

 A health system in crisis and without leadership: A TAC briefing sheet

23 August 2006

TAC calls for a global day of action on Thursday 24 August 2006 End 1000 new HIV infections and 800 deaths daily in South Africa Build a global united front for HIV prevention and treatment