Page 55 - A Widening Idea of Health and Health Research - The South African Medical Research Council from Creation to COVID

A Widening Idea of Health: The SAMRC from Creation to Covid

An unnamed athlete on the exercise bike has his heart rate, oxygen intake and electromyographic
activity taken by Dr Wayne Derman as part of a study by the MRC-UCT Bioenergetics of
Exercise Research Unit into the effects of exercise on the body to establish the basis of fatigue,
1989. Alongside the athlete are (left to right) Professor Dave Woods (UCT), Dr Philip van
Heerden (MRC president) and Dr Tim Noakes (director of the unit).

justly and inclusively. ‘The days of a paternalistic approach to public health are
numbered’, exulted one of its keenest supporters in South Africa. One indication of
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this was that in 1991 the MRC had been requested to investigate the lack of research into
securing a more equitable public health system in South Africa; its report prompted
the creation of the Health Systems Trust, a new NGO dedicated to addressing this
very need.
For an MRC grappling to reconfigure itself to meet the medical research needs
of a soon-to-arrive democratic country – Yach spoke of it as ‘struggling through a
process of change in its own mission’ – ENHR was a practical compass for finding
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