New Health MEC to put TB treatment on top of the list

By Mishkah Anthony
8 August 2008

Newly appointed MEC for health in Western Cape Marius Fransman has announced that he is going to ensure TB treatment as a top priority in his office.

This is after Fransman said that TB infections are highest in the province and the most severe in the Metro. The province’s health department plans to improve health care in impoverished areas and also establish medical schools to improve poor medical students.

Spokesperson of the health department Eric Ntabazalila says “the minister is going put TB treatment on the top of his list in the Western Cape for the next few months, before the elections, as this disease is prevalent in the poorer communities”

The Health MEC would meet the province’s three tertiary universities to discuss a possible school of medicine for poor medical student. The MEC says he is thinking of bringing the universities together and suggests a programme that could start a school of medicine. He says this is something he will diligently pursue.