His work among the underprivileged, however, will be remembered by those needy souls.AAnd his revolutionary ideas on primary and preventative medicine continue to have relevance- particularly today, when the system of health care in South Africa seems to have reached crisis¬ point, with shortages in health facilities, reduced subsidies and controversial moves towards privatisation.
The Asvat family will not be alone when they commemorate the first anniversary of his death tomorrow. The Soweto and Lenasia communities, the people of Winterveld, Kliptown, Botshabelo and Brandfort – the squatter communities to whom he was a ”messiah” -political activists and members of the medical fraternity continue to mourn his death. A year ago the head of the Azanian People’s Organisation health secretariat was gunned down in his Soweto surgery. His murderers, Nicholas Dlamini and Zakhele Mbatha, were last year sentenced to death. But friends and relatives maintain that ”his killers may have been convicted but the truth behind his death remains unknown”. They refuse to accept that robbery was a motive for the killing.
His brother, Dr Ebrahim Asvat, says: ”It’s the people living in shacks, the destitute to whom he rendered free medical assistance, who will feel the loss.” But his work has not been continued at his Soweto practice. At a memorial service last year the family announced that a trust was being established so that his Soweto surgery could remain open and other doctors could continue the practice. ”People are afraid to practice in the area. Despite the security measures my brother took, he was still killed. Most believe they will not survive financially if they were to pursue his • practice,” says Ebrahim Asvat. He said it was a pity that the practice and the creche his brother ran from the surgery were no longer serving the community.
The Community Health Awareness Project, the health project started by Asvat, does however continue to pro¬ vide mobile clinics to attend to the homeless and to needy communities. Friend and colleague Dr Joe Variawa said: ”Hurley (an affectionate name for Asvat) foresaw the current crisis in health care ages ago. He always said the system of apartheid health had to crumble. It was too expensive and cumbersome to sustain: ”Hurley was critical of the system of health care which had its major emphasis on curative medicine, and neglected health care in the rural areas.” Variawa said Asvat envisaged ”a unitary health system in which health care was a right and not a privilege”.
Friends emphasise that the Soweto doctor believed that health is linked to other aspects of life such as the level of income, housing and education. ”These were the dynamics going through the man to make him a revolutionary, a humanitarian,” says Variawa. While colleagues at Coronation Hospital in the 1970s, Variawa remembers ”Hurley trying to create a spirit of camaraderie among health workers, organising sports activities organising against poor employment conditions and low salaries.” Variawa also remembers Asvat as a pioneer in initiating political activity in Lenasia in the 1970s and after the banning of black consciousness organisations in 1977. He joined Azapo in 1978. He was also one of the few doctors who cared for detainees in those days. – Cassandra Moodley
This article originally appeared in the Weekly Mail.
