The recent vote of confidence in our Minister of Health by the ANC beggers belief. Let's list the reasons that she has clearly failed in her job: allowing Mathias Rath to peddle snake oil to sick and ignorant people, allowing babies to be nursed in cardboard boxes in some of our major hospitals, allowing our primary health care facilities to run out of chronic medication so that people with hypertension, diabetes and heart disease can go without their medication for weeks, allowing far too many children under the age of five to die, allowing far too many women who are pregnant or who have just given birth to die, allowing far too many pregnant women to lack access to prevention of mother-to-child-transmission of HIV, allowing far too many people who require antiretrovirals to die for the lack of them - do I need to go on? South Africa - for all its faults under apartheid - used to have a pretty impressive and functional public health system, albeit too focused on tertiary level care. This continued for the first few years after 1994, but since Manto has been "in charge" our public health facilities are literally falling to pieces. No, Madam Minister, I have no confidence in you and neither do most of the country. Do the decent thing - resign.
Bridget Farham, https://www.bizcommunity.com