ESIDIMENI TRAGEDY
Mahlangu holds up accountability torch by quitting
Kudos to the former health MEC for falling on her sword, but collective responsibility remains anathema to SA’s body politic, writes Onkgopotse JJ Tabane
The health sector is about life and death. While practitioners in this sector take an oath to save lives, they know that patients can often die in their hands. My niece is an anaesthetist and has to put patients to sleep every day while they go under the knife. She obviously hopes they live to tell the tale of a successful operation, but death can strike. My sister is an oncologist and has to counsel patients and their families to prepare for the inevitable, induced by cancer. I don’t know how many bodies they have had to encounter in their careers, even with the best intentions, skills and academic qualifications. I assume at medical school they were taught what to do to make sure that despite the frailty of life, they are able to put in place measures that will make a patient’s demise truly the worst-case scenario. What happened to the mental health patients linked to Life Esidimeni is a tragedy. Questions will always be raised whether — in a department headed by a qualified medic...
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