Media alert: Treatment Action Campaign 7th National Congress
Contact:
Ngqabutho Mpofu: 072 225 9675 | ngqabutho.mpofu@tac.org.za
Xabisa Qwabe: 076 850 6736 | xabisa.qwabe@tac.org.za
This weekend, the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) will be holding our 7th National Congress as we build strategies for the next phase of the healthcare revolution and choose national leaders who will guide the organisation in fulfilling them.
Media are invited to join two days of the congress:
- Saturday 27 August, from 9am: media are invited to join virtually only. Proceedings will include reflections on the last five years of TAC, speakers from Lawyers for Human Rights and SAFTU, and solidarity and support with activists globally.
- Monday 29 August, from 9am: media are invited to attend in person or virtually. Proceedings will include addresses from the Minister of Health, and Country Director of UNAIDS, the adoption of key policy and campaign resolutions, and the announcement of results of the leadership elections.
We will issue a full statement outlining key resolutions and the results of the leadership election on Monday 29 August. Interviews can be arranged with the new leadership after the closure of the Congress.
TAC’s National Congress is our highest decision-making body. During the Congress, voting delegates from TAC branches will elect TAC’s next national leadership and make resolutions on TAC’s strategic focus moving forward. Important policy discussions will take place on the crisis in the public healthcare system, the state of the HIV and TB responses, advanced HIV and cryptococcal meningitis, the state of healthcare for LGBTQIA+ community members, people who use drugs, and sex workers, the impact of patents on medicine access, strategies to hold duty bearers accountable, and much more.
The first phase of TAC’s struggle ensured that people living with HIV could access antiretroviral treatment. We brought an end to the dark days of AIDS denialism. Yet today the HIV and TB response in the country continues to be undermined by a dysfunctional healthcare system. Community-led monitoring is giving us the data to back up the stories we have all heard about. People wait for hours to be seen, only to be sent home empty handed or without all the medicines they need. Nurses and doctors are overworked and under-resourced. People living with HIV and key populations are often treated in a hostile manner and at times even denied services. Buildings are falling apart, and equipment is missing. And the clinic committees people rely on to solve these problems either do not exist or do not know what to do. Today, the struggle to fix the healthcare system continues.
Today TAC continues to represent users of the public healthcare system in South Africa and campaigns on critical issues related to the quality of and access to healthcare. We currently have nearly 6,000 members and a network of over 200 branches across eight provinces.
You can follow @TAC on twitter, facebook and instagram or using #TACCongress2022
