Doomed in so many ways

Doomed in so many ways
30th November 2014 | Spotlight

A number of people have over the years played a role in the development of the TAC and our battle for antiretrovirals. There are too many to mention. In the following pages a small group of people who played a role in one way or another and represent various constituencies, share their recollections of the past and their dreams for the future.

Portia Serote is the Women’s Sector representative on the TAC National Council. She is a passionate leader who speaks on stages around the world – especially on issues of cervical cancer, gender based violence and Tuberculosis. She is often seen leading TAC protestors in song.
Portia Serote is the Women’s Sector representative on the TAC National Council. She is a passionate leader who speaks on stages around the world – especially on issues of cervical cancer, gender based violence and Tuberculosis. She is often seen leading TAC protestors in song.

Thabo Mbeki and Dr Manto Tshabalala-Msimang. Just typing their names evokes so many memories and emotions for me. They were our leaders. But they turned on us. They did not want to provide antiretrovirals, pills we needed to stop us from dying. However, they believed that the drugs were toxic and that patients would not take their pills. I wonder if they will ever realise how much damage their political statements made?

Until today I wonder how they could keep turning their backs on us while people were dying like cockroaches, doomed in so many ways. Children were born with HIV and still nothing was done.

What angers me is it was not even their own money they had to use to save people, it was taxpayers money, our money.
The Treatment Action Campaign. We challenged them. It was not easy. We were called names, barred from clinics to give health education, not invited to participate in any government-driven civil society activities and so on. They treated us as if we were a political party.

portia

When Barbara Hogan and Dr Aaron Motsoaledi stepped into the minister’s shoes they found there were very few people on treatment. They both pushed very hard to change this picture with the help of civil society.
Despite all these challenges and resistance the TAC continued our work. We did not turn back, we did not stop, we continued.

However, our work is not done. Yes, we can look back on 10 years of ARVs and feel proud, but the hard work still lies ahead.

Many people are still dying or stopping their treatment for many, many reasons. We need to stop this. We need to now stop focusing on the numbers game and turn our focus to the people behind the numbers. We need to stop chasing global targets and chase local targets.

Once we reduce our morbidity and mortality numbers we can start moving our focus to other targets.
AIDS is not over, the battle is not over. Onwards to the next 10 years of even better ARVs.