A doctor and three senior nurses from Chris Hani-Baragwanath hospital, as well as two Aids activists, symbolically tied themselves together with a rope in front of the national health department’s head office in Pretoria on Wednesday.
”By not giving us [anti-retroviral] drugs, they’re tying our hands,” said Edna Bokaba, senior official of the Hospital and Other Services Personnel Trade Union of SA (Hospersa).
Bokaba, along with Dr Natalya Dinat of the perinatal HIV research unit at the hospital, and the Treatment Action Campaign’s (TAC’s) Gauteng coordinator, Phologolo Ramothwala, then went to meet health directo general Dr Ayanda Ntsaluba and hand a petition to him.
Dinat said 89% of the health care workers at the hospital signed the petition, calling on the state ”to work with us in building a health care system that meets the needs of South Africa’s people”.
The concerns raised include lack of access to anti-retroviral drugs for HIV/Aids patients and post-exposure prophylaxis for personnel, staff shortages, as well as difficult working conditions.
The 2 281 signatories included hospital chief executive officer Dr Reg Broekmann, all heads of medical departments, specialists and nurses. Other staff, including radiographers, pharmacists, physiotherapists, drivers, dieticians and social workers, also insisted on signing.
”People were queuing up to sign,” Dinat said. ”They want to make a difference.”
She said she had seen a baby with Aids die earlier on Wednesday morning.
”We want to help people, not to turn them away to a painful death.”
A comprehensive plan of action was necessary to provide for matters like training, access to drugs and counteracting the brain drain of medical professionals, according to Dinat.
”We can’t keep quiet and watch people die… I can understand why people want to do civil disobedience.”
She was referring to the TAC’s civil disobedience campaign in support of Aids drugs earlier this year.
Bokaba said there was a shortage of about a thousand nurses at Chris Hani-Baragwanath.
”If they sort out our problems we know we can alleviate people’s suffering,” added nurse Zandi Mayenda.
In the petition, addressed to Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, the workers say: ”Daily many of us see patients die unnecessarily of HIV/Aids. In many cases patients die because they do not have access to anti-retroviral medicines.
”Often they die and suffer needlessly because our facilities are not stocked with essential life-saving treatments for opportunistic infection. And often they die or suffer because our facilities are understaffed or because we have not been sufficiently trained to deal with the epidemic.”
Not only HIV patients suffer due to the shortage of beds, staff and support services, it says.
”We do not believe the dire state of the public health care system is inevitable. With political will and resources our health care system can be greatly improved…
”We can slow or even stop the exodus of health care workers to other countries by improving our conditions of service and building a health care system that we can be proud of: one that meets the needs of the poor.”
The minister should commit herself to increase the state’s investment in the public health sector, to develop a comprehensive HIV/Aids treatment and prevention plan and to commit to the roll-out of anti-retroviral treatment for people with Aids, the petition says.
”By doing this, you will demonstrate leadership.” – Sapa