DA reports Health MEC for saying Aids is a black person’s disease
The Department of Health say the allegations made create a problematic impression that health MEC Dr Phophi Ramathuba is racialising the issue of HIV/AIDS.
POLOKWANE – The DA has reported the MEC for Health, Dr Phophi Ramathuba to the Limpopo Legislature’s Ethics Committee on 4 June for implying that HIV/aids is a “black people’s disease”.
They filed a complaint at the Equality Court this week for insinuations said to be made by Ramathuba in a meeting between her and the Moutse Health Crisis Committee on 16 April as well as during a radio interview with the SABC.
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She is reported to have said, “Because if I could quote what the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC ) and also what one of the comrades said this week, are [sic], HIV/aids is within the black community but the money is with the white people.”
The DA stated in a statement that Ramathuba undermined all patients affected and living with HIV and Aids, instead of actively working with all stakeholders in order to find solutions. They further said that they will closely monitor the outcomes of the Equality Court on the complaint filed by HIV and TB patients in Limpopo against Ramathuba for hate speech and discrimination because of her utterances.
In response, the Department of Health said the claimed insinuation by the MEC is being used as a weapon to deviate from the department’s focus which is to smoothly transfer patients from NCG to public health facilities of their choice.
They argue that the statement made by the MEC was not a pathology statement but a socio-economic statement, merely saying more donor funding aimed at addressing issues of HIV/aids still find its way to mainly NGO’s owned and managed by white people while most NGO’s owned and managed by blacks operating in areas where there is high HIV prevalence remain underfunded and under resourced which is also an observation made by the Sanac Civil Society Forum in its press statement dated 13 April 2018.
The DA urged the committee to immediately summons Ramathuba to account and publicly apologise and withdraw her derogatory remarks.
