Unexpected Smiles

As part of my new portfolio, I am now not only single-handedly saving the world from climate change, but also (not quite single-handedly) trying to solve South Africa’s health crisis.

The other day, the Minister of Health delivered her annual budget speech to Parliament. These speeches are normally quite mind-numbing, but given South Africa’s huge health challenges, I was not only expecting it to be long and boring, but also rather depressing. And, as expected, the speech did not start of on a very cheerful note...

“We are only 0.7% of the world population but are carrying 17% of the HIV and AIDS burden of the world. We have the highest Tuberculosis infection rate per population and our TB and HIV co-infection rate is the highest in the world, at 73%. A total of 35% of child mortality and 43% of maternal mortality are attributable to HIV and AIDS and one in every three pregnant women is HIV positive.”

Needless to say, these sad facts about health in South Africa set a rather depressing tone. Surprisingly, the speech picked up and got rather entertaining – one could even say amusing!

“A lot has been said about our high maternal and child mortality. We now have no less than 1.3 million orphans in our country – mostly they are maternal orphans. This has negative societal consequences beyond health care i.e. crime; poor educational outcomes; teenage pregnancies and abortions and total social disorientation of young husbands. It is a well known fact that young husbands lose direction in life if they lose their partners so early in life.”

“Honourable Speaker we know that breast feeding is a time honoured strategy in child survival. However in South Africa, the issue of breastfeeding has been markedly undermined. It is for this reason we are calling a breast feeding summit in August this year.”

“The issue of non-communicable diseases is very less spoken about in the public arena. Last week, I tried to bring this issue of non-communicable diseases to the Health Portfolio committee but unfortunately the media got excited because they thought I was raising the issue of dietary behaviour of members of parliament.”

“In 2009, parliament asked a lot of questions about our policy on dialysis for people with kidney failure. A totally wrong debate was entered into i.e. why government does not increase and invest more on dialysis machines. This is a wrong debate altogether. It is no different from encouraging the state to put up more mortuaries because the demand for mortuaries is increasing. “