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Oct-Dec2001-9(4)
COMMENT
The whistle-blower: a
dialogue
I have been charged with misconduct - for the
second time - for criticising the MEC Health of my province, Bevan Goqwana for
worsening the health services since he took over. I said if he is running a
private ambulance service (evidence is there), ran a private practice when he
was Superintendent of Umtata General Hospital, made false claims to medical
aids, had stolen drugs found in his surgery and also failed to spend R33 million
earmarked for HIV/AIDS containment in the last financial year, then he should be
charged and removed. I face five charges of misconduct for bringing him and the
department and the country and the Constitution into disrepute. Tell me what you
think.
Is a public health doctor bound to talk if he
notices corruption and inefficiency, even if he has been warned to shut up or
clear anything he wants to say with his superiors? Can a doctor in the public
service be an office-bearer of a political party? Is it not better to keep your
head down and obey orders? The former MEC Health Dr Trudy Thomas has just
resigned from the ANC and has given cogent and powerful reasons for doing so.
Another doctor Dr Pat Praciado who worked at Victoria Hospital in Alice was shot
dead three years ago when she threatened to expose corruption in the hospital.
The hit men were arrested and charged. They in turn accused the superintendent
of her hospital of offering R40,000 to despatch her. Today it is the Super who
is retired to an opulent farm nearby. The honest police of Alice - corrupt in
other cases - could find no evidence to link him to the
murders.
Yes, ethics is great, but let us put it into
practice a little bit. Let us not be like those Free State ethicists who said
recently that the Biko doctors were treated too harshly because, after all, they
were just part of the mores of their time. I gathered lots of trouble in the
'60s and '70s for speaking out against apartheid at that time. The ethical
climate has not changed. I am now shunned - as I was then - by ordinary people
because they could get into trouble if they spoke to me. Could it be ethically
true that the more things change, the more they stay the same?
Costa Gazicoskzn@wn.apc.org
Dear Costa,
I am not knowledgable enough to comment on the
veracity of the charges you aired publicly against the MEC, but clearly similar
issues apply to us working as academics. Economic rationalist VCs vandalise
currently Australian universities. Unionists like myself picketed our
institutions (I understand that 'we' don't do this in South Africa for one
reason or other) in protest, for instance against the culling of humanities
faculties (I write on this in the May M&Gs education supplement). Bottom
line is: if we criticise our institutions publicly for this sort of thing, or if
you criticise managers of hospitals in which you worked, they will come down
hard on us. Arguably we did/do the ethically correct thing, but their response
is predictable. If our criticism is correct and they acted unprofessionally, and
unethically, we might be able to occupy the moral high ground. We certainly
had/have an obligation to act under such circumstances, but we should not delude
ourselves into thinking that they will take it lying down. Eventually we pay a
price for this (I once lost a job I badly needed financially for speaking my
mind). All we can probably hope for is to generate sufficient publicity and
solidarity to carry the day. Unfortunately, there is some empirical evidence
that, for instance, whistleblowers have been unable to ever find a paid job in
their profession again, even though they won their court cases etc.
There is some good news on the horizon perhaps: My
students tend to be furious about what's going on in public hospitals these days
(with regard to availability if HAART for rape victims for instance). When I ask
them whether they think that they have a moral obligations as (future) health
care professionals to speak out publicly against the government's stance on this
(and other) matter(s) they fairly uniformly reply in the affirmative. How many
of them will eventually have the courage to stand up and be counted - your guess
is as good as mine.
Warm regards Udo
Prof Udo Schuklenk, PhD
Head of Bioethics | Co-Editor BIOETHICS University of the Witwatersrand Faculty
of Health Sciences 7 York Rd., Parktown 2193 Johannesburg, South Africa
This edited correspondence is reproduced with
the permission of the writers.