Issued by: Truth and Reconciliation Commission
STATEMENT BY THE TRUTH AND RECONCILIATION COMMISSION ON THE CONSULTATIVE WORKSHOP ON THE HEALTH CARE SECTOR AND TRUTH AND RECONCILIATION
23 NOVEMBER 1996
An executive task team has been nominated by a broad range of representatives from the South African Health Sector to take forward the resolutions and issues agreed upon at a day long workshop in Cape Town today.
The most important task of the seven-member interim body would be to convene another meeting for early next year where a representative Steering Committee will be elected from all groups and alliances in the health sector.
The executive task team will also start scrutinising the various issues identified by the workshop, which included representatives from the state health sector, the progressive health sector, the Medical Association of South Africa (MASA), the Psychologists Society of SA (Psyssa), and bodies from the nursing professions.
Tasks of the Steering Committee will fall within two categories, although no clarity exists yet on its composition. Initially its prime functions would be within the ambit of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, bearing in minds its relatively short life span. Within this it will act as a think tank for TRC research on the health profession and its past and future roles in human rights abuses, and most importantly, this body will arrange submissions from health sector groups and alliances to be presented at a "health sector TRC hearing" sometime next year. In terms of the TRC, the workshop has also stated the need to ensure that adequate information on health care participation in human rights violations is gathered when statements are taken from witnesses and victims.
Functions outside the scope of the TRC are envisaged as longer term roles in terms of the health sector and human rights. These include ongoing interaction with the Human Rights Commission, taking up human rights issues outside of the TRC mandate, The Steering Committee would also encourage groups and institutions to participate in human rights debates, as well as putting independent watchdog structures in place. It might also participate and feed into international debates on the health care sector and human rights, particularly how the latter could be prevented.
The interim executive task team consist of: Dr Wendy Orr, a TRC commissioner,; Dr Lesley London, representing the NGO sector; Rachel Prinsloo, a psychologist from PsySSA; Gavin Damster from MASA; Linda Bali from the Progressive Primary Health Care Network (PPHCN) Donald Skinner, a psychologist from the NGO sector and Thembeka Gwagwa from the Democratic Nursing Organisation of South Africa (Denosa).
Dr Orr, who convened the workshop, commented in her closing remarks on the amiable spirit in which the debates took place. One aspect on which no clarity or agreement could be reached was that of amnesty or sanction for human rights abusers in the health sector. The issue will be discussed in more depth at the next meeting.