Page 97 - 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

their own manner in the absence of a firm lead from the three stand-in or conflicted
presidents and four inexperienced or cautious Board chairs who served between
2002 and 2012. In these circumstances, this inevitably produced sharp clashes and
infighting at the highest level, news of which was not slow to spread through the
MRC – even to its extramural units, which ‘felt the heat and were affected by the
166
prolonged uncertainty’, according to one director – and disagreement about the
MRC’s structure, its modus operandi, its future direction, and its hitherto rocky
relationship with the National Department of Health (DoH) over the extent of its
autonomy from that department and their respective positions on medical research.
‘The DoH is frustrated by what it perceives to be a lack of responsiveness of the MRC
to its research needs’, explained the 2001 SETI Review. ‘The MRC, by contrast,
felt that the DoH did not clearly articulate its needs in a timely fashion. Both the
167
DoH and the MRC … recognise the tension [between them].’ Indignantly the
MRC complained that the DoH saw it primarily ‘as a service department of the
168
Department of Health, not as a science delivery service to the country’. It treated
us ‘like one of its offspring … in a parent–child relationship’, grumbled a senior
MRC official. ‘I felt the DoH didn’t understand … what research is about … The
DoH was on a different page.’ ‘Service not science was its priority’, judged a later
169
MRC president.
170
Nowhere was this better illustrated than in the fact that the MRC Strategic Plan
for 2012–2016 was rejected by the DoH in 2011 as it ‘failed to show how the MRC will
change its work to address national imperatives’. Bluntly, the Deputy Minister of
171
Health, Dr Gwen Ramokgopa, told the MRC off, demanding that it had to be ‘seen to
be responsive to the health challenges of South Africa. The MRC should reposition
itself, be more responsive to its mandate, respond to the needs of the country, and be
more innovative.’ Accurately a Treasury official described this rejection as ‘a great
172
embarrassment to the Board and damaging to the standing and reputation of the
MRC’. It was not until 2014 that a revised plan was approved.
173
Of the three men who occupied the post of president of the MRC between 2002 and
2012, two, Professor William Pick (2002–4) and Professor Ali Dhansay (2010–12), did
so in acting capacities only as they were stopgap appointees, while the third, Dr Tony
Mbewu (2005–9), served as interim president for six months before being appointed
president in June 2005. This meant that for just over half of the ten years between 2002
and 2012, a caretaker filled the presidency of the MRC, inevitably giving its incumbent
a short-term, hold-the-fort outlook, and this at a time when the Council was facing
an escalating financial and institutional crisis. To this crisis the uncertainty within the
president’s office doubtless contributed substantially – and vice versa. A veteran member
of staff spoke of this as a period when ‘there was no direction’ at the MRC.
174
90