The Treatment Action Campaign staged the meeting by calling for the dismissal of Health Minister Dr Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, the urgent convening of a national meeting and plan for the HIV/AIDS crisis, a respect for the rule of law and the Constitution and health for all.

Several hundred TAC supporters carrying cardboard crosses marched from Kaizergracht Street and gathered in front of Parliament’€™s gates. They faced the chairs which were occupied by members of the Democratic Alliance, African Christian Democratic Party, Independent Democrats and Inkatha Freedom Party.

Turok was the only ANC MP in the sea of empty chairs reserved for his fellow ANC MPs.

The march coincided with a Correctional Services Portfolio Committee meeting and a memorandum was handed over to committee chairperson Dennis Bloom.

The TAC asked the committee to put pressure on the Department of Correctional Services to develop an HIV plan for all prisons and to ‘€œtake HIV infections in prisons seriously’€.
The 110 cardboard crosses carried by marchers represented the 110 deaths that occurred in Westville prison last year.

In a significant statement released yesterday, Deputy Health Minister Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge acknowledged the right of the TAC to protest.

‘€œWe are all in pain. Despite the tremendous efforts being done in our country by both government and civil society, we continue to lose people to the scourge of HIV and AIDS,’€ she said.

‘€œWe are losing people in the prime of their lives. We are losing our children and youth, our future. We are losing mothers and fathers and seeing an ever-growing number of orphans and child-headed families. Our health professionals are in pain, facing a pandemic for which there is as yet no cure.’€

Madlala-Routledge said there had been important initiatives to accelerate the implementation of the comprehensive plan on HIV treatment, management and care. ‘€œYet much remains to be done. We need the participation of all in this huge task. TAC is an activist group, representing the rights and needs of people living with HIV. It is their right to ask us as members of parliament to listen to them,’€ she said.

The deputy minister pointed out that government had taken steps to communicate and manage the messages communicated, but that it was now the time for unity and dialogue on HIV and AIDS.

‘€œIt is time to set aside our differences and find common ground if our efforts to fight the HIV pandemic are to succeed. The spread of HIV thrives on divisions and ignorance. We need to overcome party political and individual personality differences.

‘€œThere is much common ground and there are many forums in government and civil society that can be used to unite on the common ground and air our differences responsibly and respectfully as we all seek to address this scourge that has affected us all. We must all refrain from demonising one another or to personalise the debate,’€ she said.

Madlala-Routledge said that members of parliament had a task to ‘€œunite all our people behind this campaign’€.

‘€œWe can provide leadership. We can do so by opening up the space for people to speak to us about the scourge of HIV. We can lead by speaking out and talking openly about our own direct experience of the pain of HIV. We can lead by volunteering for counselling and testing for HIV and in this way fight the stigma around HIV.

‘€œAs elected leaders we can help spread a message of hope. That message is contained in the government’€™s comprehensive strategy and the comprehensive plan on HIV treatment, management and care. The comprehensive strategy and plan emphasises prevention and research, balanced nutrition, treatment of opportunistic infections and treatment with ARV’€™s for those who need them and prevention of mother to child infection. This is the basis for the message of hope.’€ ‘€“ Health-e News Service.