Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang is a South African heroine and a true and devoted servant of the masses, President Thabo Mbeki said on Friday.
The recent sustained and merciless propaganda assault against her was frightening, and ”belongs to wild animals”, he said in his weekly online newsletter, ANC Today.
Referring to Tshabalala-Msimang’s liver transplant, Mbeki said its success had ”made it possible for a tried and tested cadre of our movement, a true and devoted servant of the masses of our people”, to resume her place on the frontline of the struggle.
He praised the professionalism of the staff at the Johannesburg General Hospital, where the operation was performed.
However, the hospitalisation of the health minister had exposed an ugly and inhumane side to society’s value system.
”Views were expressed and a campaign waged essentially to convey the brutal message that everybody concerned, including the doctors who treated her, should have allowed Manto Tshabalala-Msimang to die.
”Various propositions were advanced in this regard by and through the media,” Mbeki said.
One of these was that the Johannesburg General Hospital had carried out the liver transplant when it did because he, as president, had obliged the hospital to do so.
”Alternatively, the hospital had treated her as a priority patient, because she is the minister of health.
”Consequently, as another proposition, allegedly the doctors at the hospital had compromised all ethical medical principles to enable Manto Tshabalala-Msimang to jump the queue, displacing other patients who should have been treated first.”
Mbeki said the allegation he had intervened with the Johannesburg General Hospital was entirely false.
”Similarly, the accusation that the doctors at this hospital had given preference to the minister of health, ahead of other and waiting patients, responding to our pressure, was also a complete fabrication.
”Equally, the suggestion that, unprompted, the hospital unethically broke some rules to enable itself to admit the minister of health as a priority patient is an unadulterated concoction.”
It was obvious those who deliberately manufactured and peddled these lies did so to argue that Tshabalala-Msimang should not have been treated and should have been allowed to suffer and die.
”They were enraged that the Johannesburg General Hospital saved her life, whereas they wished, and wish, that her health condition should and could have been allowed to kill her.
”Clearly, there is something radically wrong within our society, that anybody could have the audacity publicly to argue that nothing should have been done to attend to the health of another South African human being, allowing her to die instead, as some in our society have argued with brazen assurance.”
”Some in our society, and elsewhere in the world, seem determined to applaud this truly frightening behaviour, which, in reality, belongs to wild animals, celebrating it as an excellent example of the true meaning and expression of the democracy for which Manto Tshabalala-Msimang fought throughout her life.”
Mbeki said it was not African National Congress tradition to normally celebrate heroines, such as Tshabalala-Msimang, until after their death.
”I have now written about Manto Tshabalala-Msimang as I have because some, at home and abroad, who did nothing or very little to contribute to the immensely difficult and costly struggle to achieve our liberation, have chosen to sit as judges over who she is, what she has done for the welfare of our nation, and what she represents, today, with regard to the pursuit of the goal of a better life for all our people,” he said.
”All genuine members of our movement are greatly inspired and moved that the ANC, our struggle and people have, for fifty years, had the support, involvement and dedication of Manto Tshabalala-Msimang,” he said. — Sapa