There is really no time left in which to dodge around the truth. South Africa has reimposed the death sentence. Once a world leader in judicial executions – until the moratorium of 1989 put a stop to hangings – the new South African government has brought back executive killing with a harsh vengeance.
But this is not the execution of criminals, no mercifully ruptured neck. Those now condemned to die are the innocent: newborn babies who, by anti- retroviral drug intervention, could be saved from contracting the HIV from their infected mothers. The total number of babies consigned to this grotesque new “death row” now exceeds 100 000; a figure which increases by about 2 500 a month. The lucky babies are already dead. Those who remain look forward to brief and wretched lives, to miserable and pitiful deaths.
The life expectancy of a baby infected with the HIV can be as much as eight years. Some succumb much sooner, a quarter of their number die within 18 months. But they all eventually will die and their deaths are protracted and miserable. The emotional devastation to their parents and families can have no measure. Many babies will simply be abandoned. In the words of a paediatrician, working in a public hospital in Johannesburg: “A far more humane option would be to put these HIV- infected babies to a painless death as soon they were proved to be carrying the virus. To subject them to inevitable and such terrible suffering is beyond human belief.”
For the past four years the South African government health service has been steadfast in its refusal to sanction the use of appropriate drugs in these cases. It continues to do so in the face of overwhelming medical testimony. It dilly- dallies and it procrastinates, it obfuscates and it blatantly lies. This “policy” is not only approved by the South African president, it is encouraged and amplified by him.
It is pointless yet again to canvass the consummate futility of the South African government in its handling of the HIV pandemic. The invidious mismanagement is of record. Although the Deputy President, Jacob Zuma, recently claimed a 90% success in the “awareness campaign”, there are 1 700 new HIV infections a day – 200 higher than last year, and rising. South Africa has by far the worst record in Africa – if not the world. To call the government’s handling of the HIV/Aids crisis a disaster would be to praise it.
The South African public health service caters to the poorest. Hence, the estimated 100 000 South African babies who have either already died or are in the awful process of doing so, are African. Any medical management which might reduce this inhuman statistic has been put on hold until such time as the health authorities yet again have patiently reassessed their policies, indulged in the luxuries of further debate, installed what new committees they deem, have sat around and worked out what new alibis they might propose for their almost utter lack of practical action.
The high cost of anti-retroviral drug treatment is the excuse most usually flown in defence of the government’s refusal to save the lives of these babies. What brand of obscene bureaucratic diffidence states a ticket price for a life? “We’re sorry about your baby having to die. The cost of his life was just outside this year’s budget.” Such cold indifference to human response is called the Nuremberg option.
What is extraordinary is why the whole disgrace has yet to be brought before the South African Constitutional Court. The relevant clause in the Constitution includes the guarantees: Everyone has the right to have access to Health Care Services: including reproductive health care and No one may be refused emergency medical treatment.
It can be argued that an unborn baby at risk of contracting the HIV is a medical emergency.
As is now plain for all to see, President Mbeki and his advisers have painted themselves into a corner. There is no way out which will not result in major retractions by the president and his minions. What Mr Mbeki might try to remember, as he vacillates and coddles Irish martyr poetry, is that for each hour that he does nothing, another four black children struggle to draw breath, puke and ache, their skins festered, their mouths filled with ulcers, their bodies racked with disease -living skeletons as they approach a suffocating death.
These are the children condemned who, by drug intervention, could have been saved from contracting the HIV. These are also the apparently acceptable price for the president’s face.