Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang is consulting her lawyers over a Sunday Times article alleging she demanded alcohol while she was being treated at the Cape Town Medi-Clinic in 2005.
In a brief statement released on Sunday the ministry labelled the article ”false”.
The very comments ”attributed to Sibani Mngadi, spokesperson for the Ministry of Health, in the Sunday Times article are grossly misrepresented”, the statement read.
The Ministry added it would make no further comment on the matter.
The Sunday Times reported that Tshabalala-Msimang suffered from an alcoholic liver disease, which led to her requiring a liver transplant earlier this year.
”Just three months ago, Tshabalala-Msimang received the gift of life from a teenage suicide victim whose family donated their child’s liver,” wrote the Sunday Times.
”Within hours of the operation at Donald Gordon Medi-Clinic in Johannesburg, doctors said the minister had been diagnosed with auto-immune hepatitis, and that the cause of her cirrhosis was not alcohol.
”However, the Sunday Times can reveal that many top medical experts at state and private institutions, who refused to be named as they feared retribution from the health ministry, said speculation was rife in the profession that she suffered from alcoholic liver disease.
”Many of these experts said the only reason she got the liver was because she was the minister of health. Had it been another patient of her age in her condition, she would not have qualified,” reported the newspaper.
The newspaper also claimed that the minister drank bottles of red wine and whiskey when she was admitted to the Cape Town Medi-Clinic in 2005 for a shoulder operation.
It alleged that she forced staff to buy alcohol for her, often late at night.
Meanwhile, the National Democratic Convention has called for an investigation into the allegations.
In a statement, Nadeco said if the allegations were true it would be a ”shame”.
”This is a good reason for getting fired,” the statement read.
The Cape Town Medi-Clinic declined to comment on the matter.
Relieved of duties
These allegations against Tshabalala-Msimang come in the same the week that Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge was fired from her position as deputy minister of health.
In a briefing in Cape Town on Friday, Madlala-Routledge said she was axed for an unannounced hospital visit and an unauthorised trip abroad.
”I’ve been fired for paying an unannounced visit to Frere Hospital on July 13 2007 and for my response to the shocking situation I found in the maternity ward,” the former deputy said.
This visit to Frere Hospital was prompted by the much publicised story broken by the Daily Dispatch newspaper after a two-month under-cover investigation into why babies died at Frere Hospital, she said.
”The other reason for my dismissal is the much publicised trip I undertook to Madrid to address a conference hosted by… the International Aids Vaccine Initiative.
According to the letter Mbeki sent to Madlala-Routledge on Wednesday firing her, she was fired for her inability to work as part of the ”collective” and for undertaking a trip to Madrid against President Thabo Mbeki’s orders.
The Presidency released the letter on Saturday to ”prevent further speculation and misrepresentations of facts”.
In his letter to his former deputy health minister, Mbeki said the Constitution called on government officials to work collectively to develop and implement national policies.
”I have, during the period you served as deputy minister of defence, consistently drawn your attention to the concerns raised by your colleagues about your inability to work as part of a collective, as the Constitution enjoins us to,” the president wrote.
He said he had discussed these issues with her, even during her tenure as deputy minister of health.
”You travelled to Madrid despite the fact that I had declined your request to undertake this trip. It is clear to me that you have no intention to abide by the constitutional prescriptions that bind all of us. For this reason I suggested to you that you should resign.”
”It is clear that you do not accept my advice. This leaves me no choice but to relieve you of your duties.” — Sapa