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The deputy minister offers a ray of hope
Kerry Cullinan. 20 November 2006. Health-E News. Republished courtesy of Health-E News Service.
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With the health minister out of the limelight due to illness, her deputy, Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge, has stepped out of the shadows with a fresh take on HIV/AIDS.
Madlala-Routledge exudes a quiet but powerful confidence that stems from a set of unshakeable beliefs.
?“There has to be integrity and openness in everything that you do. If you show openness, others respond to that,?” explains the deputy minister of health.
She credits her mother, a former school principal, for instilling in her the values that she tries to live by -- ?“honesty, truth, integrity, commitment and courage?”.
Her beliefs are also cemented by her membership of the Religious Society of Friends or Quakers, who believe in pacifism, equality, integrity and simplicity.
These beliefs have enabled her endure many difficult situations. But she also faced a serious challenge when her first appointment as a deputy minister was for the defence force although she believes in non-violence.
?“I was interested to find out what the defence force people thought of me being a Quaker, but they were more concerned that I was a woman,?” she laughs.
But if the defence force was a challenge, health has been even more of one under the notoriously difficult Dr Manto Tshabalala-Msimang.
Interestingly, there are a number of parallels between the lives of the two top health politicians.
Both grew up in KwaZulu-Natal, Madlala-Routledge in uMzumbe on the south coast and the Minister at Mfume.
Both finished their schooling at Inanda Seminary, although Tshabalala-Msimang did so a couple of decades before Madlala-Routledge. Both studied for a time at Fort Hare University in the Eastern Cape and both wanted to become medical doctors.
But Madlala-Routledge?’s dream to become a doctor was shattered when, after being taken under Steve Biko?’s wing at Natal University?’s Medical School, she and others were excluded from campus for getting involved in politics.
She went on to study social science, and then did a diploma in medical technology.
It is hard to believe that Madlala-Routledge has been in Tshabalala-Msimang?’s shadow for almost three years, and that the minister has ensured that her deputy has had nothing to do with HIV/AIDS.
For the first time ever, two weeks ago speech made by the deputy minister was put up on the official health department website.
Despite her low profile, many people who have felt aggrieved by the minister?’s treatment of them have found their way to the deputy minister?’s door ?– including the minister?’s public enemy number one, the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC).
Madlala-Routledge has met the TAC regularly because she believes in giving everyone a hearing. Recently she has been able draw TAC into government efforts to draw up a new strategic plan to tackle AIDS for the next five years.
TAC?’s general secretary, Sipho Mthati, says that the deputy minister has been ?“instrumental in mediating between us and government?”.
In the past few weeks, Madlala-Routledge has also started to speak out publicly about HIV/AIDS. And she says that the space for her to do so has been created by her old friend and comrade, Deputy President, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka who now chairs both the SA National AIDS Council and government?’s Inter-ministerial Committee on AIDS.
Both deputies were leaders of the Natal Organisation of Women (NOW) in the 1980s.
Madlala-Routledge has great respect for Mlambo-Ngcuka: ?“One special skill she has is of listening and making people feel we are taking them seriously and this is contributing to the new energy.?”
NOW was part of the United Democratic Front (UDF) and helped to mobilise thousands of women against apartheid. As NOW?’s organiser, Madlala-Routledge was arrested many times and spent an entire year in detention in solitary confinement.
If she bears scars from this time, they are well hidden. Instead she is now ready to join another struggle, this time against HIV/AIDS.
?“We beat apartheid so we will be able to beat HIV and AIDS,?” she says with characteristic optimism.
The priorities, she says, are to ensure that all those on the waiting list to get antiretroviral (ARV) medicine and to make sure that as many people as possible test for HIV, so that those who need help can get it.
Madlala-Routledge has spoken out publicly about the death of her two cousins, Thandeka and Phyllis, of AIDS-related illnesses.
Both cousins were being treated by private doctors who had not put them on ARVs.
?“I took Thandeka to see another GP, who had opened an HIV clinic. When he saw her, he was visibly shaken by her condition and, after calming her down, he prescribed ARVs, which Thandeka took only for a day or two. She gave them up without going back to my GP friend to monitor her side-effect of nausea,?” says Madlala-Routledge. Thandeka died a few month?’s later.
In the case of Phyllis, despite the fact that she was sick her doctor had not had her CD4 count tested. When Madlala-Routledge intervened, the doctor said he would refer her to a government HIV Clinic, but she died two days later.
?“Both my cousins did not disclose until near the final stages of the disease. The sooner people know their HIV status, the sooner they can ask for help and the sooner they can get treatment,?” says Madlala-Routledge.
While much of her official business is in Pretoria, her heart is in Cape Town with her husband, Jeremy and their 17-year-old son Simon who is busy writing matric. Their older son, 24-year-old Martin, works in Johannesburg.
The family moved from Durban to Cape Town in 1994, when Madlala-Routledge became a Member of Parliament.
?“I sometimes have to resort to telephone parenting and that is not easy. But I am a strong believer that women have the right to work to hold leadership positions,?” says Madlala-Routledge.
Her husband, Jeremy ?– a friendly, unassuming man with a greying beard ?– is a quiet pillar of strength and support. A former school teacher, Jeremy now works for the Phaphama Initiatives and devotes his energy to promoting alternatives to violence.
Despite her busy life, Madlala-Routledge does not give the impression that she is in a rush. She has a strong, calm presence and the ability to give each person she speaks to deep, concentrated attention.
Professor Francie Lund from the University of KwaZulu-Natal, who worked with the Madlala-Routledge in the 1980s, describes her as someone who could relate to a wide range of people, even in those politically charged days. |
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