ANC says MTCT programmes will not be affected by NNP/ANC alliance in the Western Cape
The ANC had lashed out at comments by Democratic Allicance leader Tony Leon who claims that the Western Cape was likely to ‘turn into a replica of the other provinces that pandered to President Thabo Mbeki’s bizarre views on AIDS’.
It is a forgone conclusion that the present health MEC Nick Koornhof will lose his position with an ANC or NNP member replacing him, should the ANC and NNP form an alliance. Koornhof is a member of the Democratic Alliance and unless he joins the ANC or NNP he is likely to get the boot.
‘This statement is nothing more than political chicanery and a desperate attempt by Tony Leon to muster support for a misguided political strategy to win the hearts and minds of the Western Cape populace,’ the ANC’s health committee said in a statement.
The statement said that the arrogance of Leon was evident by the fact that he conveniently forgets that the reason the Western Cape is so far in their AIDS policies, is as a result of the leadership of the then MEC for Health, Ebrahim Rasool.
ANC National Health Secretary Dr Saadiq Kariem believes that it will be irresponsible to remove the funding from MTCT sites that are already up and running.
Head of the HIV/AIDS programme in the province, Dr Fareed Abdullah stated earlier this year that they were aiming to reach 90% of HIV positive pregnant women by early next year.
In the past two-and-a-half years, 16 000 pregnant women have attended the clinic at Khayelitsha and 72% accepted testing.
‘There are women who are part of the programme now, and to pull the rug from under their feet, will be irresponsible and negligent, something that managers could be taken to court for,’ Kariem said.
With regard to future programmes, Kariem was optimistic and upbeat that solutions could be found.
He said that if the ANC took the health portfolio, it would ‘certainly stop the political brownie point scoring that the DA does.
‘I believe that the position of the DA with regard to HIV, is simply politicking on the lives of people who are poor and disempowered. Their very public display of arrogance on this issue is testament to this view – in fact they initially tried to claim the MTCT programme in Khayelitsha as a DA “victory”- until some astute journalist asked a simple question of who was originally involved in establishing the Khayelitsha programme and discovered we all belong to the ANC!’
Kariem said the one criticism of the HIV programme in the Western Cape was that many people felt that the programme fell short of its potential.
‘The only aspect that is moving well is the MTCT programme, but apparently the rural areas feel that this not the be all and end all of the programme.
‘There are many basic infrastructural issues that would need to be considered.’
Kariem pointed out that UNAIDS recommends that before any MTCT programmes are implemented there has to be in place basic health care infrastructure – such as maternal & child programmes, referral networks, access to laboratory services, NGO support networks.
‘Without these in place programmes will fail. In some of these rural areas – these basics are not in place – to therefore implement a MTCT programme, however good its intentions, will fail. ‘Implementing MTCT programmes in such areas, amounts to political opportunism and has nothing to do with patient care. The urban or bigger centres are different, these services are in place, and thus should be no problem.’
Kariem said another major concern was the severe ‘bureaucratization’ of the HIV programmes and the ‘severely constrictive Stalinistic centralization’ of decision-making in the province.
‘My advice on this would be to completely devolve the decision-making to the local levels so that there is ownership, on the ground management of all HIV programmes.’
‘ Health-e News Service
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