The Human Rights Commission has been asked to investigate the KwaZulu-Natal minister of health after she used her budget speech to the provincial parliament to allege that rural doctors in the province were racist and had abused staff.
In her speech this week health minister Peggy Nkonyeni detailed seven allegations against Mark Blaylock and some of his colleagues at Manguzi Hospital. Local press reported that more allegations were later made at a press conference.
Nkonyeni’s department came under fire for suspending Blaylock without pay for a month after he put a photograph of Nkonyeni — without damaging it — in a rubbish bin.
Provincial health spokesperson Leon Mbangwa said Nkonyeni had become aware of Blaylock’s suspension only after reading about it in a newspaper last week and instructed that Blaylock be reinstated.
In her budget speech, however, Nkonyeni said she had been informed of allegations of ”racism, ill treatment of staff and abuse of departmental facilities by Dr Blaylock and some doctors operating at some of our rural facilities”.
Asked for further details of these allegations, KwaZulu-Natal communications officer Chris Maxon said: ”The MEC has instituted a task team that will investigate all allegations being made against Dr Blaylock and other medical practitioners in the hospital. As soon as this team has made its findings, the MEC will act swiftly against those whose conduct has been found to be against the public service code of conduct, the Citizen’s Charter and Batho Pele principles. We believe the team must be allowed to do its work.”
Blaylock is not allowed to speak to the media, but the medical manager at Manguzi Hospital sent a statement to the ÂKwaZulu-Natal health department to clarify some of the allegations. The Mail & Guardian has a copy of the statement from a separate source.
Aids Law Clinic (ALC) head Mark Heywood said: ”I spoke to the chair of the Human Rights Commission and informed him that the ALP acts for Dr Blaylock. We will urgently be submitting a formal request for an investigation into harassment of doctors at Manguzi and other hospitals, the role of the MEC for health in the harassment and her part in constructing defamatory allegations against them.
”It is urgent because this conflict is dampening health services and allegations of racism and the racist tone of the MEC’s comments is creating a climate of fear among doctors.”
Maxon said the KwaZulu-Natal department of health was not aware of any intended action by the ALP. ”We would, however, prefer a constructive engagement with organisations that want to engage the MEC (and the department) on any matter, including the conduct of some doctors in Manguzi,” he said.
Symptomatic of the tension in the area and the allegations and rebuttals being aired was the allegation by another health department representative that the chief executive of Manguzi Hospital had been physically assaulted by doctors during a meeting this week. This allegation was strongly denied by the doctors concerned and by Mbangwa, who said no such assault occurred.
There have been reports that Blaylock was also accused of assaulting a worker with a stethoscope, which the Manguzi Hospital statement said was a misrepresentation of a verbal altercation that had taken place between two friends with no physical contact.