The Democratic Alliance (DA) on Tuesday launched a strong attack against Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, labelling her incompetent and appealing to President Thabo Mbeki to remove her from Cabinet.
“The honourable minister of health has failed in her task to provide health for all,” DA health spokesperson Sandy Kalyan said during the health budget debate in the National Assembly.
“She (Tshabalala-Msimang) is a liability to the health of South Africa, and the DA urges President Mbeki to appoint someone who is more up to the task of keeping South Africa healthy.”
Kalyan said the country had many health challenges and needed a minister who was both dynamic and proactive.
However, Tshabalala-Msimang’s only claim to fame had been to be chosen as the Sunday Times newspaper’s “Mampara of year 2002”.
The minister had failed to get a handle on the Aids pandemic, she said.
She had mishandled government’s reaction to the Treatment Action Campaign’s (TAC) court action for the provision of antiretrovirals, costing the taxpayer close to R3-million.
The money could have been used to improve the quality of lives of HIV patients, Kalyan said, noting that the ruling of the court to provide antiretrovirals at State hospitals had not yet been complied with.
“Spending of HIV/Aids conditional grants was a problem in 2001/02 and some main problems identified by the Department of Health was that hospital infrastructure was unable to tackle the additional burden of HIV/Aids, lack of a framework to guide programme implementation, no counsellors trained for pre/post test counselling and no nurses trained on HIV/Aids rapid testing.”
“Also, the late transfer of additional funds to provinces impacted seriously on provinces ability to spend their conditional grant budget.” she added.
Kalyan also pointed to Tshabalala-Msimang’s endorsement of Aids dissident, Roberto Giraldo’s views.
Giraldo believed poor nutrition caused Aids, and had recommended HIV patients eat a combination of garlic, onions, potatoes and virgin olive oil.
“Some 40% of all South Africans live in poverty and a great percentage of them are HIV-positive. How are they going to afford virgin olive oil and garlic?” Kalyan asked.
“The minister has a history of making rash, unsubstantiated statements. She should devote more time to finding a cure for the foot-in-mouth condition she appears to suffer from,” Kalyan said.
Her party colleague, Mike Waters, said the African National Congress government had “dithered and delayed” while an estimated 900 000 people had died from Aids in South Africa.
The DA welcomed the findings of a report by the departments of health and the National Treasury that providing Aids drugs was affordable, and believed Cabinet should deal with it as a matter of national urgency.
The excuse that the country could not afford a national roll-out of antiretrovirals had always been flawed because the state spent about R4-billion a year on treating patients for opportunistic infections.
“A mere 10% reduction in the number of patients being treated for Aids symptoms will save hospitals an estimated R400-million a year.
“It was pure ‘penny wise and pound foolish’ to refuse to treat Aids on one hand, while treating its symptoms on the other,” he said. – Sapa- I-Net Bridge
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