​​​“Justice goes beyond the courts, the lawyers and the judges. Everything you do has consequences."

Speaking to a large audience at the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences' (FMHS) at Stellenbosch University's (SU) Dean's Distinguished Leader Lecture series recently, Professor Thuli Madonsela asked aspirant and current healthcare professionals, visitors and academic and administrative staff to consider how they can work toward building improved systems, processes or policies which will further serve to advance healthcare in South Africa.

Madonsela, who is currently the Chair for Social Justice and Law in the Faculty of Law at SU, completed a seven-year term as South Africa's Public Protector in 2016. In her talk, entitled Social Justice and Ethical Leadership, she referred to a number of cases she worked on as the country's public protector, all of which pointed to incidents that appeared to be lawful, but were seemingly unjust.

She said the country had come a long way after more than two decades of democracy, but that socio-economic disparities and blatant discrimination in the areas of health, education, housing and other rights promised in the constitution continued to impede proper structural change.

In her talk, Madonsela spoke in particular of a family who had taken their father to hospital after he had fallen ill. Three days later, the family, who lived in a rural area in South Africa, came back to visit him but he was nowhere to be found. The hospital found the remains of a human being behind the hospital building, but by the time his wife registered this matter with the Public Protector's office in 2016, the DNA test results for those remains had been outstanding for more than ten years.

“Would this case have landed on my desk if this man had been an Oppenheimer? You see, even in healthcare, money goes to money. You would therefore agree with me when I say there is a link between poverty and health. Go into South African townships and you'll see there are no private hospitals…in many cases there's no car or money to get to a public one either. That is why we need to enhance state capacity to pass laws that reduce poverty and inequality," she maintained.

Madonsela, who is involved with a number of programmes aimed at addressing structural inequality in South Africa, recently hosted the first Social Justice M-Plan Expert Roundtable in Stellenbosch. The M-plan (Mosa-plan) recognises Ms Palesa Mosa, whose arrest as a 13-year-old pupil on June 16 1976, followed by detention without trial and torture, meant that she was denied an education and an ability to realise her human potential.

A number of SU speakers attended, including the FMHS Dean Professor Jimmy Volmink. The M-Plan is aimed at catalysing the process of ending poverty and equalising life opportunities by 2030 as envisaged in the National Development Plan (NDP).

“As we walk out of this room today, I want you to think about this: Who are you here to serve? Think carefully about the things you do on a daily basis and remember that social justice touches each of us in ways that we might not yet recognise. We must develop leadership competencies in our own way to help reduce inequality…otherwise Ubuntu is nothing but a philosophy to maximise human survival."

Caption: Prof Thuli Madonsela meets with the FMHS Dean, Prof Jimmy Volmink, and other guests at the FMHS Dean's Distinguished Leader Lecture.