and the coming revolution’. His organisation Digital Health aims to use technology to address diseases like HIV and TB, lifestyle issues and pregnancy, wellness and exercise, and more. “We seek to ensure seamless integration across the health services system in terms of drug prescription, review, dispensing, provision and delivery, including a fully-tracked health logistics service that allows people to monitor the door-to-door delivery of medicine.” Digital Health supports start-ups to mature, to enable them to access commercial contracts and obtain long-term sustainability and stability. It helps local entrepreneurs to engage with mentors, leading health care organisations and business leaders to refine their innovations. Siraaj is also the strategic partner to Iyeza Health, which started out as a ‘last mile logistics’ service in Cape Town – i.e. the fast and efficient movement of goods from one place to another, from a central location to the final delivery destination. As a subcontractor to the Western Cape Government Chronic Dispensing Unit, Iyeza Health has been responsible
for the delivery of chronic medication to 30 public sector clinics in low-income areas in Cape Town – and sometimes to patients’ homes. “In addition, one of the critical things for us as pharmacists and pharmacy researchers, Iyeza Health has achieved the required cold chain compliance, and built the required digital infrastructure in order to scale the business nationally.” Siraaj credits his MPH as being a turning point in his career to focus his skills on health innovations at a population level, and at the same time partner with local entrepreneurs to apply digital solutions to community level initiatives. “I was lucky in that I also got involved very early on in getting involved – and this unique network was something that I’ve been able to work with over time as well - and that can help empower others.” “Digital health is an evolving space. Everybody’s trying it, nobody’s really got it right yet - but we’re going to keep trying. And ultimately, people in need of better care are going to see the difference. That’s what we need to see.”
Annual David Sanders Lecture in Public Health and Social Justice To celebrate Emeritus Professor David Sanders’ contribution as founding director of the School of Public Health at UWC, and his influence in the field of public health generally, an annual lecture was instituted in 2012 in his name. Each year an eminent speaker is invited to engage scholars, practitioners, policy makers and activists in contemporary challenges and opportunities for public health research, teaching and practice. In bringing scientific excellence and implications for political and social action to bear on their chosen issue, they continue the vigorous, socially engaged, scholarly debate and practice that characterised much of David’s engagement. Previous speakers have included Prof Hoosen Coovadia, Prof Richard Laing and Dr Mary Bassett, among others, and have focused on issues including access to medicines, the link between race and health, and the challenges of devising public health systems in developing nations. • •
The 2019 lecture was given by Advocate Adila Hassim, lead counsel for the Life Esidimeni case, who presented on ‘Decanting Life Esidimeni: Valuing life and human dignity in South Africa’. No lecture was given in 2020, given the constraints imposed by COVID.
2019: Adila Hassim Advocate Adila Hassim was lead counsel in the Life Esidimeni arbitration – a legal investigation into one of the biggest human rights failures in democratic South Africa, and the deaths of at least 144 mental health care service users from causes including starvation and neglect. Her lecture, entitled ‘Decanting Life Esidimeni: Valuing life and human dignity in South Africa’ delved into the truth behind the Life Healthcare Esidimeni scandal, and the inability of those involved to take responsibility for their actions. “Of all that we learned during the hearings, all of the terrible things, there was one vein that ran coldly through the evidence,” Hassim said, “and that was the repeated claim by government officials that they were obeying orders, and that they could not take individual responsibility.” They did it to save money, they said; and because nobody could have foreseen how bad things would get. And because, as would be repeated so many times, they had “instructions from above”. In 2015, Gauteng health MEC Qedani Mahlangu announced the province would terminate a decades-old contract with the private hospital group Life Esidimeni to provide state-subsidised care for about 1,700 mental
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