HRC
David Beresford
The Human Rights Commission (HRC) has suffered another body blow with the resignation of Helen Suzman, the fourth commissioner to walk out of the prestigious body headed by the controversial lawyer and theologian, Dr Barney Pityana.
Suzman said on Thursday that her resignation would take effect at the end of the year. “I don’t feel I’m serving any purpose,” she said. “They need somebody younger and possibly less cynical.”
Her resignation comes in a week when the commission – already subject to attack as a waste of taxpayers’ money – has been laid open to further criticism by a high court judgment supporting the rights of 11 immigrant doctors to practise in the private sector.
Earlier this year the HRC supported the government and the National Interim Medical and Dental Council against the doctors, ruling that – although they were being discriminated against – such discrimination was justifiable under the Constitution.
This week Pretoria High Court Judge NM McArthur dismissed the restrictions as entirely arbitrary. He painted a picture of extraordinarily blatant discrimination against the doctors, some of whom appear to have been making a major contribution towards the shoring- up of the public health sector.
When the HRC made its original finding it was embarrassed by a statement of dissent issued by Suzman.
In a bizarre development this week, the commission refused to release the text of Suzman’s statement, saying that the finding had been made unanimously by the panel which heard the complaint and as such was binding on the commission.
The HRC, under the chair of Pityana, has been the subject of long-standing rumours of unhappiness among staff which have been fuelled by a number of resignations.
The case bought by the 11 doctors against the Minister of Health, Dr Nkosasana Zuma, and the medical council, was fought around a requirement that doctors from most foreign countries have to practise for a period in the public sector – supposedly under South African supervision – and then pass an examination before they are allowed into the private sector.
The doctors, pointing out that their medical qualifications abroad were comparable or superior to the South African qualifications, complained that these requirements were “both professionally and morally unjustifiable”.
In coming down on the side of the doctors Judge McArthur cited the example of one of them, Dr Jan Szczygielski, who had qualified in Poland in 1976 and had specialised in internal medicine. He came to South Africa in 1990.
He now works at Germiston hospital which caters for a population of 250 000 people. There he runs the department of internal medicine. The hospital superintendent is a Bulgarian, who is also limited to public sector work as an immigrant.
“Only one South African qualified doctor comes a few days in the week as a consultant in the paediatric department,” notes the judge. In their capacity as specialists, Szczygielski and the other plaintiffs have to teach South African interns and then they have to sit the same examination as their pupils to qualify for private practice.
The doctors argued that their treatment was clearly discrimination, because – in an attempt to accommodate returning political exiles who had qualified in medicine abroad – the medical council had granted exemptions to South African citizens who registered before the end of 1991.
The judge noted that “citizenship can never be a criterion for assessing the professional competence of an individual.
“It bears no relationship to a person’s ability to practise medicine and if he carries out his duties in a responsible manner it is because he is a good doctor and has nothing to do with being a South African citizen.”
Lawyers submitted the requirements for the foreign doctors were “cynical” and designed to discourage them from leaving the private sector. The judge said the evidence did not show an “improper motive” on the part of the medical council, but he noted that out of about 30 000 doctors registered with it, about one-third were involved in the public sector, which catered for at least 75% of the country.