Pickets outside Umlazi hospital after death of doctor ‘bullied' into working
Alulutho Mazwi, 25, an intern doctor at the Umlazi-based hospital who was diabetic, died while on duty last week after allegedly being made to work despite reporting he was unwell.
His death and the circumstances leading up to it have raised questions regarding the treatment of junior staff, specially interns, by their superiors in the hospital. There have since been calls for accountability and systematic reforms from the public and political and labour organisations.
The provincial health department said an investigation into the allegations of bullying in the lead-up to Mazwi's death is under way, and the supervising consultant who allegedly forced him to work despite his ill health has been placed on precautionary leave.
Despite the measures, the Public Servants Association (PSA) led a picket outside the hospital on Tuesday to raise concerns about working conditions, infrastructure and governance at the hospital.
The union, joined by the SA Federation of Trade Unions, the Democratic Nursing Organisation of SA and the Patriotic Alliance (PA), said the incident highlighted the "toxic" environment junior staff are subjected to at the hospital, including bullying, overwork and overall leadership failure.
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The Citizen
5 days ago
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KZN Health condemns vigilante protest blocking hospital access
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The Citizen
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KZN Health condemns ‘unlawful acts of vigilantism' by protesters
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Daily Maverick
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Professor screw it, let's do it — battle-hardened HIV researcher Francois Venter ready for another big fight
Professor Francois Venter refuses to pull his punches, and he has publicly excoriated both the President and the health minister for their inaction on the HIV funding crises. As Sean Christie quickly learnt, that's just how one of the country's top HIV researchers rolls. 'I hate, hate, hate talking about myself,' warns Professor Francois Venter. We are sitting in the immaculate boardroom of Ezintsha, the Wits-based medical research centre that Venter leads. Ezintsha came to international attention in 2019 after the results of a clinical trial called ADVANCE were published in the New England Journal of Medicine, showing the effectiveness of new HIV therapies and, perhaps more importantly, demonstrating why it is important that clinical trials be conducted in the contexts in which the drugs are mainly consumed. Venter, by this time, was already well known for his work in HIV, not only for his scientific outputs, but also for taking up cudgels on behalf of people living with HIV. 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He describes his involvement in student politics as an almost involuntary act, akin to staying afloat in a turbulent river, saying: 'As far as I was concerned, there was nowhere for a white person to hide, and joining the fight [against apartheid] was the only moral choice.' The height of the HIV epidemic Venter did his 'house job' (residency) at Hillbrow Hospital, which is where he first encountered HIV as a student. 'It was the beginning of that incredible surge in numbers that occurred between 1993 and 1997. The first cases I saw were returning political exiles,' says Venter. By 1997, the HIV epidemic was at its zenith in South Africa, and hospitals across the country were overwhelmed. He still struggles to forgive the callousness of some senior administrators. 'And looking back, that was the first sign of the absolute arrogance of some of the health people in government. And you see it now in the way foreigners and poor people are treated in the public sector. It is one thing to have no idea how to deal with a problem, but to lack the ability to do any reflection, have any empathy and to self-correct is so upsetting.' Venter's interest in HIV was sparked by his experience of looking after a haemophiliac in 1997. He was amazed at the impact of antiretroviral therapy (ART) on his patient. Jobs followed at the Wits-based Clinical HIV Research Unit with world-renowned HIV expert Ian Sanne and Professor Helen Rees's Wits Reproductive Health and HIV Initiative, where Venter ran a huge US government-funded HIV-support programme for a decade in several provinces, gaining experience in expanding primary care approaches in chronic diseases. They were heady times, in which Venter was left disappointed again and again by much of the medical community. 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'The new drugs for obesity are every bit as revolutionary as the HIV drugs,' he says, 'but every bit as fiddly as antiretrovirals were in 2000.' New studies, using these wonder drugs in people with both HIV and obesity, are being hatched here. Ezintsha's health staff are looking at using HIV lessons to try to improve primary care for diabetes, hypertension and other common diseases in South Africa. The race to the bottom We are a long way from the early days. Donor funding, although key to the fight against HIV in South Africa, has also distanced organisations from communities and created a dependency which, after the collapse of the US government's Aids fund, Pepfar and the US International Agency for International Development threatens catastrophe. 'What happened still feels quite unthinkable. On the one hand it feels like 2004, when Mbeki's denial of HIV became national policy and everything felt like it was going backwards. On the other hand it is extremely frustrating that our systems have not been made sustainable, and are now on the brink of collapse as a result of Pepfar having been interwoven with the national HIV programme to such an extent that everything unravels when it is stopped.' Venter sketches a scenario in which South Africa's HIV response – 'the one effective programme we have' – is misleadingly characterised as 'too expensive' and dragged down to the lowest common denominator, 'leading to the same terrible outcomes you find in crap programmes, like diabetes'. 'A race to the bottom, in other words… We have poor indicators for almost every health metric outside of HIV, TB and vaccines, and even those are now slipping, due to the Health Department dropping the ball.' Will this grim scenario prevail, or will South African healthcare be shepherded through the labyrinth of budget cuts and misfiring systems? Venter doesn't see why not. 'Our problems are systemic, and we have enough resources and brains to fix them. What is needed is strong leadership, which is something we currently lack,' he says. 'I'll tell you what you do… We all declare our interests, put an end to corruption, and everyone from the President and the minister of health down in government must use the public healthcare system when using their medical aid. If they experience the system first-hand, they will have an immediate investment in assisting those fixing it. 'Stop blaming the private sector and a lack of money for the problem. Start using the innovations South Africans are world leaders in, including data systems. If we do that, I am telling you, we will fix the system in five years.' Venter, clearly, has already rolled up his sleeves for this new fight. It will be interesting to see who joins him. DM This story first appeared in our weekly Daily Maverick 168 newspaper, which is available countrywide for R35.
