The temptation to deflect when faced with an insurmountable situation should be called out every time it rears its ugly head and redirected to the truth.
A case in point, in the past few days is when sport, arts and culture minister Gayton McKenzie called for the barring of foreign nationals at South African hospitals.
Sparked by the USAID funding cut debacle, during a parliamentary debate the minister said that 17% of losses rendered from the funding were servicing foreign nationals over South Africans.
When we write about the inciting and often divisive comments made by McKenzie, we do not do so to add fuel to the fire but to simply assist in the redirection and correction of these statements. It is in the spirit of good morals and not to further perpetuate such rhetoric.
Redirecting and correcting these does not perpetuate such rhetoric.
Take note of what he said: “Because the US President's Emergency Plan for Aids Relief (Pepfar) has been removed, 17% of the money is gone. I ask the president of this country: can we stop giving medical help to illegal foreigners?
“They should be banned from our hospitals. They must go to their country that has a good relationship with America.”
These comments are not only ethically and professionally troubling, they are dangerous as they have great potential to sow divisions.
His arguments should be called what they are: inhumane, short-sighted and not expected from an individual who not only sits in our parliament but leads a ministry. He should be implicitly aware of his impact and influence in society.
It’s a no-brainer: in South Africa — no matter how stretched the system is — healthcare is a protected human right and not necessarily a privilege. It is a fundamental right that ideally should not see immigration status, colour, class or background.
Diseases do not care where you come from or who you are. Hence healthcare, by law, is a given. This, of course, is in no way an attempt to overlook the fact that the healthcare system is under tremendous pressure, but if a man in power starts trying to shift blame instead of keeping quiet or fixing the problem, we have to question his intentions.
Tact is a skill that most lack.
But in some way, McKenzie is right. There is too heavy a burden on the system and the cutting of the funds is not doing the country any favours.
However, rather than making illegal immigrants the scapegoat, the government must address the structural issues plaguing South Africa's healthcare sector. Long-term mismanagement, corruption, lack of staff and misdeployment of resources are more critical than the pressure that comes with having undocumented migrants.
McKenzie's thesis also dodges the larger economic and social realities. The unregistered immigrants have been employed in South Africa's economy, channelling resources through informal employment and consumer spending.
Their culpability for South Africa's financial woes is an avoidance by a populist administration to admit its inability to form economic plans that will manage resources responsibly and last.
If South Africa really wants to reform its health system, it should not do so through denying treatment to illegal foreigners, but through improved general governance and funding.
To this point, the government should engage the US through diplomatic channels to mitigate the impact of the cuts in funding while moving towards self-financing of the health sector.
The country can ill-afford to fend off a xenophobic uproar fuelled by a tactless comment on top of the challenges it is currently facing over its strained economy.
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