Special Hearings — Health Sector Hearings — 1997-06-18

UNKNOWN: Thanks and the other thing is you had raised Madam Commissioner that you would like us to raise the issue about recommendations regarding human rights issues and even though it's not in the submission, I've revised one and I can address that matter as well.
 Thank you very much honourable Chairperson and Commission members for allowing us to make the submission which is based on input from the Faculty itself.  
 Now the University of Natal Medical School was established in 1951.  The Medical School owes its existence to the farsighted vision of two medical missionaries namely Dr McCord(?) and Dr Helen Taylor,  who realised that the burgeoning population of the Greater Durban area required increasing health services.  It was intended to serve the Black, primarily African population of South Africa exclusively.  The founding of this Medical School was part of the philosophy of the government at the time to keep racial groups separate from one another.  The government run by the National Party recognised that the number of doctors to service the Black communities was inadequate.  They wanted to establish a medical school specifically to train Black doctors that could treat the diseases of their own communities.  This would help to keep the Black labour force healthy and to prevent the spreading of diseases to the White communities, in which Blacks via the migrant labourers and domestic workers. 
 During the four decades of its existence the Medical School established a fine national and international reputation for academic rigour and unwavering commitment to the community it served despite suffering years of political harassment, inequitable state funding and a chronic lack of space, facilities and equipment.  It has made an invaluable contribution to medicine in providing until 1976 when the Medical University of South Africa and Medunsa opened, the only undergraduate medical training open to Black students in the country.  
 The Medical School was physically separate from the main campus of the University of Natal, Durban.  The University has not taken as keen an interest in the Medical School as a did with the other faculties and it became a sort of foster child of the University.  Since students of the Medical School are Black they had very little interaction with the other University of Natal students who were mostly White.  Blacks had a separate residence and were not allowed to use the sport facilities or library on the main campus.  In fact Black students were not allowed to wear the blazer with the emblem of the University.  This physical separation of the differences in facilities led to a struggle between the students and the University administrators who, from the student viewpoint, did not do enough to change iniquities amongst students.  
 The University of Natal was one of the last universities in the country to maintain segregated residences.  Forcing the Black students to live in the same residence called Alan Taylor Residence, and subjecting them to adverse conditions in which to study created the place and climate for people to exchange ideas and bond together in the fight against apartheid.  The University of Natal Medical School was one of the most fertile nests for political activists and future leaders of the country, leaders such as the late Steve Biko, Dr Mamphele Ramphele the vice chancellor of UCT, Dr Nkosozana Zuma, Minister of Health, the provincial premiers such as Dr Frank Mdlalose and Dr Ben Ngobane and many of the provincial MEC's for health have come from this medical school.
 The Black Consciousness Movement was born at Alan Taylor Residence.  Intimidation, harassment and detention by the Special Branch of the Security Police was a major problem.
 The Medical School was officially called the University of Natal Non-European Section initially.  After the Black Consciousness Movement started students successfully campaigned for the name to be changed to the University of Natal Black Section.  Currently it is referred to as the University of Natal Medical School.
 The idea behind opening a medical school at the University of Natal was to provide medical training for Blacks, mostly Africans.  However the medical school had difficulty in finding an adequate number of Africans who qualified for entrance into medical school due to the inferior primary and secondary educational opportunities available to them.  As a result the Administration adopted a quota system to allow for fifty percent of the admissions to be African and fifty percent Indians and Coloureds.  Over the years the proportion of students body has become dominated by Indians.  The change in the composition of the student body was due mainly to the fact that some students,  mostly African, had to repeat certain years of study and did not complete these years of study in the allotted period of time prescribed by the University and were excluded.  Some of the reasons for this included time constraints due to their political activities and the inadequate educational training prior to coming into medical school. 
 For many years students were admitted into a year of study called the preliminary year which was designed to provide students with better preparation in the basic sciences before they entered the first year.  However this programme was abolished because it was widely perceived not to be fulfilling its purpose.  
 African students got the smallest bursaries from government.  Some of the bursaries came with the stipulation that once the students became doctors they had to return to their own communities to administer health services.  They were expected to learn enough to treat the diseases of their own people and not necessarily learn highly technical procedures.  Therefore King Edward VIII hospital, with its substandard facilities, was an adequate hospital for training these doctors.  Despite these difficulties some 
2,500 students have graduated from the Faculty of Medicine, a record unmatched by any other South African university.  The school has also trained hundreds of Black doctors to specialist status. However this number is still woefully inadequate to deal with the health crises facing the country. Black students, most of whom are medical students...(intervention)

WENDY ORR: I'm sorry to interrupt you, but Solly did cover very, very vividly the conditions at Alan Taylor Residence, so perhaps you can move on to the issue of Student government.