Programme Director, Professor SS Naidoo;
National Chairman of the SAMA, Dr Mzukisi Grootboom Minister of Health, Dr Aaron Motsoaledi;
MEC of Health, Dr Sibongiseni Dhlomo;
General-Secretary and the Executive of SAMA,
Project Leader, Dr Leanya Mphatswe
The Mkhize Family;
Distinguished guests;
Ladies and gentlemen.
Thank you for inviting me to address you on this special occasion of the inaugural Memorial Lecture of the South African Medical Association (SAMA).
I am humbled by the fact that such as noble profession, the medical profession has bestowed on me such an honour.
As much as I feel honoured by your request, I must admit at the onset that the task of presenting this lecture is one I find both sad and daunting.
It is sad because we are here to celebrate the life of one of our own and daunting because my message to you today must assist us all to define ways to contribute to the growth of knowledge and to strive to find solutions to the challenges that bedevil us as a people.
Naturally, by virtue of nobility of this craft, you have placed the heavy weight of having to set the tone for many generations to come on my shoulders, but since this responsibility is inescapable, I can only have a go at it.
I must also state that as much as memorial lectures offer an opportunity to reflect on the lives of those who have left an imprint on our lives, the memory of Dr Senzosenkosi Mkhize is still as raw, and it will forever be an unsightly blemish on our conscience as a nation.
Like many young people, Senzo, as he was fondly called by all who knew him was passionate about his chosen profession. He was humble, kind, accessible and always ready to assist whenever duty called. He stood out in his dedication in that he knew what he wanted to do to contribute to the practice of medicine in South Africa.
He identified a need in the area of cardio-thoracic surgery and decided to fill that gap by choosing to specialise in this field. Even though he still had a long way to go, he did not waste time, but used his time to learn about this craft during his spare time. As a community service doctor, I can imagine that he did not have time to relax and rest.
He understood the urgency of his calling and regularly volunteered to assist specialists at the Chief Albert Luthuli Hospital whenever he could. This way, the specialist team did not have to look for additional assistants, Senzo was ready to learn by experience and to learn from the best in the field.
This is why it is such a humbling and moving occasion for me to be asked to give this inaugural lecture.
Nobody deserves to lose their life in such a callous and brutal manner; it is also a tragic irony how the medical community lost one of its own.
I therefore commend you for taking this noble step of creating a pathway for us to always remember not only Dr Mkhize, but many other unsung heroes and heroines of this profession.
One of the imperatives we have is to use this project to serve as a reminder of the struggle and challenges that doctors face in their work and this way maintain a high level of consciousness about our collective duty to make this profession work.
Programme Director,
Since this is the inaugural lecture I felt it prudent to preface my submission this evening with a reference to the basics of this noble profession, by going back to the Hippocratic Oath; an oath which like no other places the burden of conscience unique only to the practice of medicine.
This oath captures injunctions of what it constitutes to be other than human, to be able to set aside our subjective human frailties and to place the value of human life as well as the well-being of others above all else.
And so, informed by the values and principle that guide the practice of medicine, I would like to focus my submission reflecting on some of the questions that must, necessarily, help the medical profession and indeed all other allied health professions to heed their oaths and to serve by the injunctions thereof.
The central question I would like to pose is what, given the history of our country, is the role of the medical professions in ensuring that the rights entailed in our constitution become a living reality for all South Africans regardless of their race, class, gender, age, ethnic origin or sex orientation.
A related aspect of this question is whether our developmental journey has enabled us to transform our society and to meet the needs of our people, moving us beyond a silo approach in service delivery to a holistic approach that recognises and respects the various facets of people’s lives.
Programme Director,
The Hippocratic Oath I have referred to earlier places on practitioners, teachers and students of medicine an honourable duty to exercise their craft in a familial manner that is akin to how they would treat their own kith and kin.
In this regard the Oath states: “To hold him who taught me this art equally dear to me as my parents, to be a partner in life with him, and to fulfil his needs when required; to look upon his offspring as equals to my own siblings, and to teach them this art, if they shall wish to learn it, without fee or contract; and that by the set rules, lectures, and every other mode of instruction, I will impart a knowledge of the art to my own sons, and those of my teachers, and to students bound by this contract and having sworn this Oath to the law of medicine, but to no others".
It was therefore envisioned, through this Oath, that those who practice medicine would understand that the underlying basis of their craft, is first and foremost the restoration of health, the prevention of disease and promotion of well being over and above material and financial gain.
Unfortunately, our latter day experience is that, because medicine is a rare art and craft, and because of the perversity inherent in living in a profit driven society, the provision of health service has fallen prey to market forces and commoditisation, thus undermining the sacred creed that medical professionals should strive to maintain- to serve humanity faithfully and without corruption.
Confronted by this reality, we must always appeal to those in the Medical Fraternity that as much as they too must earn a living, medicine is an essential service for our people and is fundamentally different from all other commercial enterprises.
Health professionals have a duty to deal with one of the most crucial aspects of human beings: the restoration of health, the preservation of the human body.
So sacrosanct, and fundamentally different, is this duty that Jonathan Miller explained: “Of all the objects in the world, the human body has a peculiar status: it is not only possessed by the person who has it, it also possesses and constitutes him; our body is quite different from all the other things we claim as our own. We can lose money, books and even houses and still remain recognisably ourselves, but it is hard to give any intelligible sense to the idea of a disembodied person. Although we speak of our bodies as premises that we live in, it is a special form of tenancy: our body is where we can always be contacted".
In this regard, this profound statement highlights the strategic importance of this profession in the attainment of the society we aspire to as South Africans.
The statement also emphasises the reason society holds the profession with such high regard.
To attain such expertise and excellence in your field, you have had to work hard, committing many hours to the study of your craft.
This is in many ways a reflection of your appreciation and understanding of the critical role of education as a gateway to better prospects and opportunities in life.
Education is one of the most important if not the most critical and versatile tools to address the numerous challenges that confront our society today.
In this regard, I am reminded of the example of the life of Professor ZK Matthews who as one of the few black intellectuals in his time, shunned the temptation to cloak himself in glory and understood that his education should be used for the interrogation of the problems that affected his community and seeking solutions that would empower them to improve their lives.
Besides being an intellectual and scholar, he never towered above his people but remained firmly grounded in the reality of the lives of the ordinary people in his community.
There is a saying in Africa that "when a number of trees come together they can break the wind but if one towers above them it can be broken by the wind".
He strove for excellence not only in the corridors of Fort Hare but also in finding solutions for the marginalised black working and underclass.
In similar vein, I would hope that, as professionals, you all remain connected to the communities you serve. We live in challenging times, where the value of life has been sadly replaced by that of money or, as they say, Mammon. And as government, we have to continue to find ways to address the needs of all our people and ultimately to create a humane society.
At this crucial time in the history of our development, we are faced with national, regional and international imperatives that require strategic approaches.
As government we have prioritised a number of programmes to address the triple challenges of unemployment, poverty and inequality.
The medical profession is central to this vision, and a critical resource that can guide and serve society in the context of a developmental state we are building.
Ideally, the medical profession in a developing society burdened with such historical disabilities besetting our nation cannot be driven by the same socio-economic ethos that would a medical profession in a developed society.
This inspired conception of the medical profession delineated above does not by any stretch of the imagination suggest that the medical profession should not enjoy the deserved benefits of their profession, like all other professions.
On the contrary, you are being requested to take your profession to a higher level given the nature of the conditions facing society.
As such medical practitioners need to take a greater responsibility in community development. They should, for instance, be concerned whether patients have a meal before taking medication or not.
They must ask whether children have safe and secure environments to develop holistically, they must be able to distinguish or identify diseases caused by poor social conditions and participate in the development of policies to address these social determinants.
In essence I am saying that their practice ought to go further than the inoculation of the challenges we face, that your diagnosis must also take into account the socio-economic conditions of your patient so that whatever remedy is prescribed goes beyond curing the disease but also includes practical guidance to enable individuals and families to protect health and well being.
As much as we have placed an emphasis on the duty that medical professionals have towards the health-care of their fellow citizens, we are aware that this is a joint responsibility for all stakeholders, including government and society, preferably with government providing as conducive conditions as possible.
Allow me to conclude by recalling the 1961 speech, to the Congress of the Medical Association of South Africa by the Vice-chancellor of the University of Cape Town, J.P Duminy, who said, on the subject of The romance and humanism of medicine, that:
“You men of medicine have always been in the vanguard of the crusade in keeping mankind ever mindful of those fundamental human issues which I believe to be the most worthy and most demanding of our time and our attention. We look to you, and we look to you with confidence to use the ample power of your influence in the struggle to bring the world back to a proper realisation of the essential meaning of existence, of the sacredness of life, and of the dignity of Man”.
Fifty years on we are still looking to you, as great men of medicine, to lead us in the primary duty to provide health care for all our people, thus advancing the exalted values of building a united, non-racial, non-sexist, just and prosperous South Africa.
Like political radicals, the task of doctors is to get to the point where they would no longer be necessary because their goals would have been accomplished.
I thank you.
