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AIDS:
A multifaceted South African crisis (continued)
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Woods sees the combating mother to child HIV transmission as one of the few areas in which the government can make headway in fighting the spread of AIDS. "Maternal to child transmission -- there we can make a difference because we've got a captive population. We have women who are highly motivated because they are pregnant. They are in the health care system and your intervention is only over about a month. And that is very different than trying to alter the sexual behavior in the general community," Woods says. "And I think this may be the tragedy of South Africa the one place where we can make a difference we are not putting our money there," Woods says, "We are putting our money on the wrong horse. We are putting tens of million of rand into general education of the public and I don't know that it makes any difference at all." Woods is equally pessimistic about the government's motivation for not continuing this type of research. "What makes good health sense might not make good political sense and I'm worried with AZT that they are really playing the political game and not the health game," Woods says. Woods believes there is enough of a health care infrastructure in South Africa's urban areas for the government to provide AZT and breast milk substitutes to HIV positive women. But it would be political suicide for the ANC-led government to propose such a plan because South Africa's urban areas are racially mixed and the rural areas are almost entirely black. The government would be accused of catering to white interests in the nation's cities. "And again, in South Africa, because of our history you have to be terribly careful that things aren't labeled in a race way," Woods says. To Woods' charges Similela says, "I've never been somebody with a political inclination and I get terribly emotional when I think politicians are not thinking." "I'm passionate about pregnant women. I had to expand my brain beyond child care for me to be able to sit here and say to myself at this point, this where we have to be as a unit," Similela says, "If there is a political agenda here, than I am uninformed." While the doctors and the politicians battle for control and try to gauge one another's motivations, women like Mpungose and Moloi are stuck in the middle. And Woods has his hopes pinned on them. "My guess is that in the long run the answer is going to come from women...I think it's going to come through black women's education and empowerment," Woods says, "It's going to have to come from ordinary barefoot women who are at the bottom of the pile...and they are going to need a messiah." Ngobeni is no martyr and her charges at the Baragwanath support group are not barefoot, but they may be the best hope for South Africa's future. Woods adds, "I think in a bizarre way, the AIDS epidemic, may actually have one good spin off in that it will impact on the way women behave as a collective." It does seem to be having that effect on the women at Baragwanath hospital. "Those I am talking with are changing me,” Moloi says, "It is as if I don't have this because of this group and the support I get here." And even though, Mpungose still has not told her former lover that she is positive and she's still afraid to come out to family and friends, she says she will attend the next rally to demand AZT. "I think we have to talk to people -- even if you don't tell them your status -- you just must talk to make them aware of it [AIDS]." |
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