Hon. Madam Speaker and Deputy Speaker Hon. Premier Chupu Stanley Mathabatha
Hon. Members of the Executive Council (MEC’s) Hon. Chief Whip and Chair of Chairs
The Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee
Hon. Members of the Provincial Legislature (MPLs) Executive Mayors and Mayors
Leadership of the ruling party, the African National Congress, Leadership of SACP, Alliance Partners
Leader of official opposition party Director-General
HOD for Health and All HODs
Executive Management of the Department and all healthcare workers Stalwarts and Veterans of our Movement
Esteemed Majesties
Traditional Health Practitioners
Leaders of Religious Organizations Leadership of the Trade Union Movement
Representatives of the Non-governmental Organizations Friends, family and colleagues
Members of the Media Ladies and gentlemen
Ndi matsheloni, avuxeni, thobela, goeie more, silotjhile, good morning.
Honourable Speaker, exactly 66 years ago, on this day, the 30th of March 1951, the Groups Areas Act came into effect, which resulted in segregation. Our people were moved from Sophiatown and District Six wherein blacks and whites were living together. Hospitals such as Voortrekker, Van Velden, Louis Trichart Memorial and Pietersburg Hospitals were declared no-go-areas for blacks. Patients were triaged not according to severity of illness but rather on the colour of their skin.
After having successfully demolished this old legislated system of segregation, we have inadvertently introduced another unlegislated and unjust system which triages patients based on the size of their pocket. We have to work hard through the NHI to demolish it.
We are presenting this budget as we close the Human Rights Month, wherein on this day in 1960 a State of Emergency was declared by the Apartheid government and many of our people died. It is during this month that we remember our forefathers, our mothers who fought tirelessly, shed their blood for this country to be where it is today. Forty years after his death, our President Jacob Zuma honoured Stephen Bantu Biko, a scholar, an activist and an aspiring medical doctor.
Biko was denied access to basic healthcare by medical doctors: his colleagues, his teachers, his principals and the healthcare system at that time after being brutally assaulted and tortured by the apartheid police force.
They watched him die, naked and shackled on the filthy cold floor of a police hospital, with no food, water or medicine. The same colleagues connived in concealing the cause of his death. To date the descendants of the same continue without shame, guilt or remorse to try to benefit commercially from his personal medical records. Read more [PDF]
