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

WENDY ORR: To add to Glenda's list and it goes on and on, we have one, a letter of support from the Department of Community Dentistry at the University of the Western Cape; the Human Rights Center at the University of California at Berkeley; SINTROS which is a health and human rights organisation in Chile; the Medic Alert Foundation; the Inter-American Institute of Human Rights; the Dental Association of South Africa; the Gauteng Provincial Government Department of Health and a health and human rights organisation in India whose name I am afraid I can't pronounce.  But I think this all just demonstrates that the issue of health and human rights is not only a national one, it's an international one and the process which we are going through together is one of immense importance.
 Before I move on to thank all the people who have made this hearing possible I want to underline the importance of the meeting which is going to follow which is going to be chaired by Dr London.
 We have to acknowledge that there are certain things which the Truth Commission is authorised and mandated to do and other things which it cannot do, and I think the time has now come for us to say that the health profession must decide what needs to be done about the issue of health and human rights.  The Truth and Reconciliation Commission is certainly prepared to assist and facilitate and give whatever input we can, but as Mapule said our shelf-life ends on the 15th of December 1997, health and human rights issues will remain a concern for decades to come.  
 So I do ask that as many of you as possible do stay for the plenary meeting which is going to follow immediately after I have done the wedding reception thing of saying thank you to everybody.  I always feel that everyone switches off at this stage, but it's really very important because these people have all made a tremendous contribution towards these hearings.
 At the workshop in November last year we elected a task team whose primary task was to ensure that these hearings occurred and they have worked tirelessly for the last however many months, seven months, meeting regularly, spurring people on to make submissions, making submissions themselves and I would just like to name them.  The membership has been a bit of a moving goalpost but the hard core group, as it were, consists of David Green, Leslie London, Donald Skinner, Rachel Prinsloo, Gavin Dampster, Sheila Clow, we had a representative from the Progressive Primary Health Care Network who tended to change from meeting to meeting, and latterly three researchers joined us, Laurel Baldwin from the Health and Human Rights Project; Sheila Roquitte, who is a research intern here at the TRC and Lionel Nicholas, who was asked by PsySSA to help them with their submission and who actually presented their submission.  This group, without a doubt, has made the last two days possible and I personally want to thank them for the practical and the emotional and spiritual support that they gave me as I worked towards these hearings.
 I want to thank the TRC staff who have worked, Thulani and Wilhelm who have been here, but who aren't here now, for the past two days, who are going to help us in pulling the proceedings together and documenting them;  our logistics officers Gayle and Elizabeth;  Linda van Demen my secretary who has dealt with mountains of correspondence and faxes and submissions and Martila Naidoo who is our support services manager in this office.  
 Thanks to the South African Police Services who provided security. I think they have been quite unobtrusive but I can assure you they were here every morning at 7:30 with their sniffer dogs making sure that these premises were safe.  
 The translators who have a very difficult job.  I think simultaneous translation is one of the most difficult things to do and they always somehow need to manage.
 And then to my fellow panellists who have also worked very hard in going through the submissions allocated to them and in compiling questions.  Thank you very much.
 Today is the end of one process and the beginning of another, and I look forward to seeing that process through with very many of the people who are in this room and many who aren't in this room as well.  Thank you very much.
HEARING ADJOURNS