ART stock-outs in the Free State place patients on death row

Submitted by Anso Thom and Lungi Langa

Tantaswa is 32 years old and lives in Pelindaba, in Bloemfontein’s Mangaung township. She tested HIV positive in October 2008 at National Hospital in Bloemfontein, with a CD4 count of 484. Her health swiftly deteriorated. “I had been coughing more often than usual and suffering from diarrhoea. I was not eating well and I had also lost a lot of weight,” she said.

Dissatisfied with the monitoring efforts of her local government clinic, Tantaswa consulted a private doctor. The doctor confirmed that she needed to start on ART immediately, and offered to sell her the pills at R300 per month. Having had to leave her R1000 per month job in a restaurant kitchen due to her poor health, it was an impossible task to meet these financial demands every month. After a donor-funded NGO informed her that they no longer had any capacity to help, Tantaswa was forced to return to the National Hospital. Again, she was turned away with the advice that she should buy the medication privately. This culture of passing the buck has left Tantaswa still awaiting treatment and living in fear of what could happen to her without ARVs.

“I am afraid that if my condition deteriorates I won’t be able to return to work and I won’t be able to support my child. But most of all I’m scared of dying while waiting for treatment,” she said.

Despite promises by the provincial Department of Health in the Free State that the ART moratorium would be lifted in February 2009, in March, doctors and activists continued to report that they still did not have access to the drugs within the province. The Southern African HIV Clinicians Society (SAHCS) conservatively estimates that about 30 people continue to die each day, due to their inability to access ART in the Free State. Tantaswa is fearful that she may one day be included in this figure.

“Death is painful and serious. I have seen other people die of this sickness and it scares me,” she admitted.

The Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) continues to collaborate with the AIDS Law Project (ALP), the Confederation of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) and other civil society and activist stakeholders to ensure that ART is made available to all those in need in the Free State and South Africa at large. TAC has held meetings, marches and pickets in the province to demonstrate its strong opposition to the violation of patients’ rights. TAC also picketed outside Parliament on the day of the finance minister’s budget speech to protest against the poor financial planning and budgeting mismanagement, which has resulted in ART stock-outs in the Free State.

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