Khadija Magardie
The controversial MEC for Health in the Northern Cape, Elizabeth Dipuo Peters, has no plans to follow KwaZulu-Natal’s example in rolling out the provision of the anti-retroviral drug nevirapine to HIV-positive pregnant women. The office of the MEC said this week that local health authorities were “not yet convinced” the province had the logistical means to mass-provide the drug at public health facilities.
Peters’s spokesperson Pota Thabo Lekhu said the department’s policy was being informed by results coming from two pilot sites in operation for the past six months, at Galeshewe and De Aar. Lekhu said reports from the sites indicate piloting the drug was fraught with insufficient information, inconsistencies and other logistical problems. Among other things, he said, pregnant women did not attend the clinics regularly, making it difficult to track their progress.
“The results from the sites will inform the provincial and national government what should be put in place for not only rolling out the nevirapine programme, but sustaining it,” he said.
Peters, a reputed “hardliner” who endorses the government’s policy of non-provision of anti-retroviral drugs in public hospitals and clinics, was in the spotlight recently after she lambasted health officials at Kimberley Hospital for giving the anti-retroviral AZT to a raped baby. She later denied doing so, saying her intervention as the MEC was “in accordance with the national policy”. Peters said she had “a responsibility to ensure that government policies are adhered to by all within the department”.
A social worker, she has a long history of advocacy of women’s rights. In the late 1980s she headed the women’s department at the South African Youth Congress, followed by a post in 1990 as secretary for women’s affairs for the African National Congress Youth League. A member of the national executive committee, Peters was previously the ANC chief whip at the Northern Cape provincial legislature.
“It’s a lie [that] the government doesn’t provide nevirapine the fact that we’re piloting it means we are providing it,” Lekhu said.
Rather, he said, the provincial government questioned whether it had sufficient infrastructure, like nursing and counselling staff, for the process.
“We cannot just take policy decisions around something we don’t know and are not convinced of,” Lekhu said. “Its not like administering Grand-Pa.”