JUSTIN ARENSTEIN, Nelspruit | Monday
MPUMALANGA is prosecuting doctors and nurses for gross misconduct after they tried to help rural rape victims get counselling and free anti-Aids drugs.
The province’s health MEC Sibongile Manana has already fired district health manager Careen Swart for failing to get written authorisation for the Greater Nelspruit Rape Intervention Project (GRIP) to operate in Rob Ferreira hospital in Nelspruit.
Manana also this month quietly charged hospital superintendent Dr Thys van Mollendorff, hospital manager David Mdluli, chief matron Thuli Khoza and social worker Dianne van Heerden with misconduct for their tacit support of GRIP’s work.
GRIP is a self-funded group of volunteer Nelspruit housewives and rape survivors who offer rape counselling, clean clothing and free anti-retroviral drugs to the hundreds of women and children who are referred to Rob Ferreira after sexual assaults every month.
Manana accused GRIP of distributing anti-retroviral drugs such as AZT as part of a plot to undermine President Thabo Mbeki and the African National Congress (ANC) government. She banned AZT from all government facilities and insisted during a series of public tirades late last year that the drugs endangered black lives and threatened to turn the country into a “banana republic”.
Manana evicted GRIP from the hospital and banned officials from speaking to it after the organisation ignored the AZT ban, but was forced to invite the volunteer group back in October following massive local and international outrage.
Manana now appears to have redirected her anger at hospital officials. She first charged and fired Swart for allegedly irregularly allowing GRIP into the hospital without written permission, and this month charged the entire management of Rob Ferreira for gross misconduct.
Her representative, George Mohlomunyane, refused to list the charges this week and would only say the officials were being prosecuted in terms of Resolution 2 of the Public Service Coordinating Bargaining Council’s disciplinary code.
Health superintendent general Dr Gulam Karim was also reluctant to comment, describing it as “sensitive” and insisting that the hearings, which are closed to the public, were sub judice.
Karim acknowledged that GRIP was only one of 49 non-government organisations or volunteer groups such as the Cancer Association, Rotary Club and Lions working at Rob Ferreira without formal written permission but was unable to say why the anti-rape group was singled out.
The disciplinary hearings against Dr Van Mollendorff, Mdluli, Van Heerden and Khoza continue later this month. – African Eye News Service