Nawaal Deane
The head of a Nelspruit hospital has been suspended, allegedly because of his support for an organisation that helped rape survivors obtain access to anti-retroviral drugs to reduce their chances of catching HIV.
The superintendent, Dr Matthys von Mollendorff, is taking Mpumalanga MEC for Health Sibongile Manana to court to lift his suspension, which, he says, came as a result of his continuing support of the Greater Nelspruit Rape Intervention Project.
The organisation is an NGO that raises funds to supply post-exposure prophylactic packs of anti-retroviral drugs to rape survivors. According to the organisation there are more incidents of child rape in Mpumalanga than in any other province.
Manana tried to evict the organisation from the Rob Ferreira hospital in October 2000 for facilitating rape survivors’ access to anti-retroviral drugs. But it filed an application in the high court demanding reinstatement in the hospital’s care room. The matter was then settled between the parties and the organisation again took occupation of the room but was not allowed to keep anti-retrovirals on hospital premises.
The relationship between Manana and the organisation has been extremely hostile, with Manana accusing it of undermining the government’s policy against the use of anti-retroviral drugs in state hospitals. She has also accused it of endangering the lives of poor black people.
In his affidavit, Von Mollendorff says that his suspension “forms part of a sustained campaign by the MEC against me and the doctors of the Rob Ferreira Hospital who disagree with her on the provision of anti-retroviral drugs to rape survivors”.
He was officially suspended on November 6 for allegedly giving “false information” about keys to the care room used by the organisation. The hospital is currently facing a staff crisis; the suspension will have a significant impact on the burden of work on the other doctors and will impact negatively on patient care. “The hospital is substantially understaffed,” says Von Mollendorff. The hospital has eight vacancies and two doctors on maternity leave. It serves a community of about 260 000 people and takes referrals of complicated cases from the Barberton and Shongwe provincial hospitals.
“There is a chronic shortage of doctors with each of us trying to split ourselves in half to compensate for the shortages,” says one doctor.
This is not the first time that staff have clashed with the department because of the organisation. “Anyone who supports the Greater Nelspruit Rape Intervention Project and speaks out against the department gets victimised,” says another doctor.
In October last year, Manana charged the entire management with misconduct for allegedly allowing the organisation to operate within the hospital without the department’s permission.
Von Mollendorff says: “There is an ongoing programme of harassment and intimidation conducted by the MEC and her officials against me and my staff, almost all of it relating to our relationship with the Greater Nelspruit Rape Intervention Project and our attitude relating to anti-retroviral drugs.”
He says that staff have been warned repeatedly [by the department] not to summon the organisation’s counsellors when rape survivors are admitted and doctors have been ordered not to prescribe anti-retroviral drugs.
“The other doctors are too afraid that they will be victimised or punished. At Themba hospital, there is not one doctor prepared to write such scripts for women or child rape survivors because they fear the consequences of angering the MEC,” he says.
The suspension follows a letter from the department on October 29 in which Von Mollendorff is accused of giving the hospital’s sole care room key to the Greater Nelspruit Rape Intervention Project, thus impeding the department’s access.
In a response to these allegations, Von Mollendorff wrote to the department saying that there are a number of keys for the care room. “I have no doubt at all that at the root of the crises at the Rob Ferreira lies the MEC’s obsessive determination to eject the organisation and to interdict the provision of anti-retroviral drugs to rape survivors.”
In a letter to the department, some of the doctors at Rob Ferreira showed their support for the superintendent by demanding that his suspension be lifted and that a “higher authority investigate the alleged personal victimisation of Von Mollendorff by the MEC, Ms Manana”.
The letter says that the Greater Nelspruit Rape Intervention Project and the rape care room is an ongoing unresolved issue but has resulted in the personal victimisation of Von Mollendorff.
The organisation has given full support to Von Mollendorff. “I understand that he was suspended because of the support he gives to us,” says Fikile Sibiya, a member of the organisation.
But Dumisani Mlangeni, spokes- person for the department, says: “Von Mollendorff was suspended after allegations of insubordination were made against him.” He says that he “was not suspended for his alleged continuation support of the Greater Nelspruit Rape Intervention Project” and the matter is “between the employer and employee”.
African Eye News Service in Nelspruit reported last week strong speculation that Manana suspects Von Mollendorff may have influenced an HIV-positive mother to sue Manana for R700 000 in damages after doctors at Rob Ferreira failed to give her the anti-retroviral nevirapine to prevent her newborn child from contracting HIV.