2008: S.Africa: BLACK RACISM: Call to probe health MEC for anti-White Racial Slander & Harrassment

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Original Post Date: 2008-05-08 Time: 00:00:00 Posted By: Jan

The Human Rights Commission has been asked to investigate Health MEC Peggy Nkonyeni for racial slander and harassment, following serious accusations levelled at Manguzi Hospital’s Dr Mark Blaylock last week.

Nkonyeni accused Blaylock of serious unscrupulous conduct, including having allegedly assaulted a radiographer, Clifford Mdunge; using an operating theatre to operate on a dog while patients were waiting; breaking a pharmacy window; and calling striking health workers “baboons”.

But the Rural Doctors’ Association and the SA HIV Clinicians’ Society have dismissed these allegations as “wildly exaggerated, out of context, and crudely constructed to make him (Blaylock) and other doctors appear to be racist”.

Blaylock was recently suspended for throwing a picture of Nkonyeni into a dustbin.

In her budget speech on Tuesday, Nkonyeni said she had lifted the suspension but ordered fresh investigations into at least seven incidents of misconduct, the most serious being that he assaulted Mdunge, who then needed stitches, and that he also used an operating theatre to operate on a dog while patients were waiting.

On Monday, Nkonyeni’s staff allegedly ordered Manguzi’s hospital manager to supply her with details of every incident involving Blaylock during his six years’ service.

Since Tuesday Nkonyeni has expanded the charges against Blaylock and another doctor, Colin Pfaff, claiming that they had denied Aids patients food parcels and that Blaylock once hit a gardener with a stethoscope.

While Blaylock has been forbidden to speak to the media by the health department, Dr Ettiene Immelman, Manguzi’s medical manager, issued a statement responding to Nkonyeni’s allegations. He asked the health department to release his statement, but so far it has refused to do so.

Mdunge had “numerous written warnings” for being drunk on duty, the statement says.

“On the night in question he was unavailable for hours. When he eventually arrived he was too drunk to perform his duties and was very aggressive,” said Immelman.

Immelman adds that there was an altercation between Blaylock and Mdunge, where the latter fell and cut himself. Mdunge laid a charge, the matter went to court but was dismissed, and he got a lecture about drinking on duty by the judge.

Nkonyeni also claimed that Blaylock had treated a dog in a bed meant for patients and allowed his own dogs to sit in on operations. However, Immelman says this incident never happened.

Instead, four years ago in the outpatients department, when no patients were waiting, Blaylock had “put a chest drain in the dog owned by a member of the community”.

At the time, the hospital had a policy of treating pets as there are no veterinary services in Manguzi. However, this was not supposed to take place in the outpatients department.

In the pharmacy incident, Blaylock lost his temper with the pharmacist who had failed to order anaesthetic drugs.

“There were no anaesthetic drugs in the pharmacy. Blaylock had a patient on the operating table requiring emergency abdominal surgery, who later died,” said Immelman. “He smashed the window, and got a written warning. The pharmacy staff were also disciplined regarding stock control.”

Nkonyeni said that while she did not have a vendetta against Manguzi, “the person of Peggy Nkonyeni was personally attacked” when Blaylock threw her picture in the dustbin in February.

During his disciplinary hearing, Blaylock apologised for this “irrational action”, saying that he was provoked by Nkonyeni’s remark that rural doctors were motivated by profit, not by caring for people. – Health-e News Service

Source: http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?art_id=vn20080504103245751C394899

Source: http://archive.africancrisis.info/?p=26440

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