Special Hearings — Health Sector Hearings — 1997-06-17

ADV POTGIETER: Thank you very much Professor.  I must say that it is a well-known case but listening to the chronology and the sequence of events it still induces a very deep sense of shock if one listens to what has happened.
 Perhaps just to draw your attention to one minor thing, you have started the sequence of events by incorrectly reflecting the date as the 19th of August 1997.  I think you obviously meant 1977.
 Now perhaps one other issue, even to a non-medical person, the conduct of these doctors in question here, I mean it's clearly unprofessional, at best for them negligent, but it had taken a considerable period of time for the professional bodies to take any action.  In fact there has been suggestions that that was part of an attempted cover-up of what happened.  Do you have any comment on that issue?

UNKNOWN: At a meeting held at the University of Cape Town with the Executive Committee of the Faculty of the University on the 27th of September 1980 four members of the Medical Association of South Africa, two of them now deceased, one of them, the President of the Association at the time, advised the Committee that, the University of Cape Town Committee, that MASA, the Medical Association, was under threat from the Department of Health should the Association in any way cast doubt publicly on the competence of the district surgeons and on the health service.

ADV POTGIETER: So it appears as if that influence, undue influence, also played a role it seems in the way in which this thing developed?

UNKNOWN: That was what was stated to us at the University of Cape Town when we called the Medical Association people to explain why it was that they had given unqualified support to the decision of the Medical Council that there had been no infringement of basic medical responsibility towards the patient.

ADV POTGIETER: And in your view that in itself an extraordinary conclusion by MASA?

UNKNOWN: My colleagues and I found that extraordinary, and as is known the Supreme Court, in due course, some years later, equally found it extraordinary of the Medical Council.

ADV POTGIETER: Thank you.  Professor thank you very much.  I don't have any further questions.  I will hand back to the Chairperson.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you very much.  Any further questions?  Wendy.

WENDY ORR: Peter thank you very much, and I'd like to add my voice to yours in apologising to Mrs Biko and her family.  Although I am very proud to be a doctor I can never listen to or read the chronology of Steve Biko's death without feeling a deep sense of shame.
 And I do hope that one of the products of these hearings is that we will be able to overcome that shame and make sure that that never happens again.
 I have had access to Steve Biko's files in the Department of Justice in Pretoria and I'd like to read, just very briefly, from a magistrate's report.  It was the law at that stage that detainees had to be visited once a week by a magistrate to record any complaints.  On the 2nd of September 1977 Steve Biko was visited by the magistrate and these were his complaints.
"I ask for water to wash myself with and also soap, a washing cloth and a comb.  I want to be allowed to buy food.  I live on bread only here.  Is it compulsory for me to be naked?  I am naked since I came here".
 If we achieve anything through this process I do hope that we ensure that human beings are never again treated like animals and like non-people the way Stephen Biko was.

CHAIRPERSON: Pumla.

MS GOBODO-MADIKIZELA: Thank you Chairperson.  Thank you Peter.  I would like to greet Mrs Ntsiki Biko.
 You mentioned in your submission the fact that you thought that the treatment of Steve Biko reflected apartheid discrimination, I think that actually it goes much deeper than that.  I think it reflects a total subjugation of the Black body.  The way Steve Biko was physically abused was as if he does not feel pain.  The way we saw him in the photographs following his death, it was as if he did not feel pain, and one wonders at what point they were going to stop to abuse him.   I think that that is the sadness in the relationship between the police and the people that they abused.  They had no moral obligation on the people that they abused.  
 The sad thing about it is that he did not only have physical abuse visited upon him, he also had verbal abuse when, following his death, Kruger declared that he was not moved, his death left him cold.  So it's this double violence over someone like him that left the country shocked.  I am wondering to what extent did the treatment of Steve Biko, by the medical profession, set a trend for the way future detainees were treated by doctors?

UNKNOWN: The point about the death of Steve Biko and the subsequent inquest was, as I have mentioned, that it gave a unique insight into what happened to people.  We cannot say how many times that story was repeated, one surmises that it was often.

CHAIRPERSON: Fazel Randera.

DR RANDERA: Peter I know we are going to have submissions from Medical Schools tomorrow but Cape Town is not featuring in that so I am going to take advantage of having you here today, and asking, you've mentioned already that there were hundreds of people who literally came to visit you at the time and subsequently, what changes, if any, did it bring about in the human rights and ethical teaching that took place at the University that you were present at?

UNKNOWN: The Universities, including our own, started from the position at that time of not teaching the students anything about ethics and their responsibilities to people such as prisoners, detainees, their rights and obligations with respect to the police and to the State and to interference by the State and the police.  Insofar as that was the position there has been improvement since then.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you very much.  I just want to say that whilst there is the horror that is evoked by hearing yet again what did take place, I want us also to take account of the stand that was made by people such as yourselves and others, and that we are this extraordinary mixture in this country, and the wonder is that the good has managed to prevail.
 Whilst we mustn't engage in a great deal of self-congratulation I think it is a good thing to say yes, there was evil, there was all that was wrong, but that was not the only element in the story, and that it would be people like yourself and others of the same ilk who will help to ensure that we do get the kind of South Africa where this sort of thing doesn't happen again.  That now your Medical Schools will have said that an important part of your syllabus is inculcating the culture of a respect for human rights and I am sure that that is happening, but that we need a great deal more than ever before, especially with a democracy that is still so fresh, we need those who will speak out when it is necessary to do so.  And that we mustn't allow ourselves to be fobbed off with accusations of, oh you are being a racist or whatever, that we've got to say that we want to be able to stand upright and hold our heads high in this country, and want to know that those who are the custodians of this kind of thing are people who will in fact stand up and be ready to be counted and speak the truth without fear or favour.  I salute you and your colleagues.  Thank you.