I recently, completely by chance, came across a paper published in 2019 in a peer-reviewed journal, Focaal – Journal of Global and Historical Anthropology, authored by a United States based, South African academic, Theodore (Ted) Powers entitled, “Echoes of Austerity”. (https://www.berghahnjournals.com/view/journals/focaal/2019/83/fcl830102.xml?rskey=kneG81&result=1) It was disconcerting to find that I featured as a less than flattering central point of this anthropological discourse on, “Policy, temporality and public health in South Africa”. Further investigation revealed that Powers is an Associate Professor at the University of Iowa having previously been affiliated to the University of Pretoria. In the abstract of the paper he indicates that his intention was “to explore how policy principles associated with…
-
-
The Difficult Dilemma of COVID-19 in our 2020 World!
I write this article as a 72-year old man with hypertension well-controlled on antihypertensive medication and as such an individual who falls into the group of individuals at higher risk for a more complicated course of COVID-19 should I acquire that infection. I am also a doctor and spent my professional life as both a practicing specialist clinician and a manager of health services. The reason for my stating this at the outset will become apparent to the reader. In South Africa the surge of COVID-19 cases and COVID-19 associated deaths overall first peaked around July of this year, 2020, and subsequently declined. Prior to the surge the country went…
-
Decision Making in Government … the good and the bad!
I have just finished reading the book written by John Bolton, “The Room Where It Happened”. Bolton was the National Security Advisor of the United States and worked closely in this position with President Trump. It is a startling analysis of how decisions were made or not made at the highest level of the United States Government during his relatively short term of just over a year as the National Security Advisor. While a number of books have been written reflecting the experience of working with President Trump, this book is unique in that it reflects the experience of a political insider, a person who previously had held senior positions…
-
“Accountability” essential for a successful nation!
“Accountability” as defined in the Merriam-Webster dictionary is “the quality or state of being accountable i.e. an obligation or willingness to accept responsibility or to account for one’s actions”. My professional training as a doctor made me aware of my accountability for my actions as a health professional. Accountability directly to my patient, a child in my case as a paediatrician, their parents and extended family. Accountability to the professional body with which I was registered to practice as well as to my employer, a public sector health department and university. Later when I moved into health management in 1995, I became legally accountable in terms of the Public Finance Management Act…
-
COVID-19 … social distancing is now the last line of defence.
In the term “social distancing” I include the full spectrum of measures introduced to counter the spread of the coronavirus. With the lifting of almost all the restrictions on the movement of individuals in South Africa “social distancing” to prevent the spread of the coronavirus becomes the last line of defence. Recently pictures on social media have shown groups of apparently well educated and informed people in South Africa happily congregating in groups without masks completely ignoring the need to remain at a safe distance from one another. Counter intuitively some are those who continue to work from home due to their age or because they have co-morbidities. For riders…
-
Leadership or management … the challenge of making decisions
I have been reflecting on the challenges President Ramaphosa faces in dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic and his struggle to match the need to consult widely and the need to take decisive decisions that have and will affect the lives of so many. Leadership, irrespective of position, requires the ability to motivate people and take an organisation in a given direction possibly different from that which it had previously taken. Management on the other hand involves systems and processes that allows an organisation to function efficiently and achieve its goals and objectives. Both expect those involved to act in an ethical and honest manner. This lead me to think about…
-
COVID-19 and Corruption
On 23rd July 2020 I wrote an unknowingly prophetic piece on the Cancer of Corruption in Health. In that I used examples of corruption in the health sector that I had encountered in the past. In doing so, I had no idea that the cancer that I had described and which I concluded could be excised by good and honest leadership had progressed to such an advanced stage in South African society. At a time of crisis, with the country threatened on many fronts by an unprecedented pandemic, one would have assumed that even the most hardened criminal would have hesitated to steal the scarce resources needed to save the…
-
What is advice? … in the context of COVID-19
The challenges faced by countries and their governments to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic are formidable and in many countries there has been conflict and disagreement between the government of the day i.e. politicians and the experts i.e scientists and researchers. The United States is a glaring example of this scenario at its worst. There has even been conflict between public health experts and epidemiologists on the validity of various strategies to contain the spread of the virus with probably the most well documented example being that between the expert advice given to governments in the United Kingdom and Sweden. As in most things in life the final verdict on…
-
The time is now for change!
I trust also that the reader will agree that given my background, which I will elaborate on elsewhere on this website, I have no desire to make political capital out of any comments in this regard. So what is my assessment of the position South Africa finds itself after 100 plus days of varying degrees of “lockdown”? As I write Gauteng has for the first time the greatest number of positive COVID-19 coronavirus tests in any province as well as having the largest number of active case of any province. This is a trajectory that is closely followed by the Eastern Cape. The Western Cape long designated as the “epicentre” of the…
-
Winter of discontent …
I live in Cape Town where the last few days have been cold and windswept … bleak or bucolic could be other adjectives to describe the weather but also the psyche of the nation. We have lived through over 100 days of varying restrictions euphemistically termed “Alert levels” determined by a Command Council of politicians, we are again subject to power outages euphemistically terms “Load shedding” rather than power failures defined according to various “levels” of severity, today it is level 2 and finally here in the Western Cape while the rains pours down there are water restrictions at “level 3”. It seems to me we are a country of…