Reunion of 1980s hero doctors
Game-changers risked much to assist in troubled times
ABOUT 150 South African doctors will gather in Port Elizabeth tomorrow for a reunion of the Eastern Cape Medical Guild – a body that played a crucial role in the 1980s and ’90s to ensure quality healthcare to largely black, coloured and Indian communities under the apartheid regime.
Dr Jay Moodliar, 80, a past president of the Port Elizabeth Black Civic Organisation (Pebco), will be one of the leaders honoured for their role in founding the guild.
Also known as the Northern Guild, they were a group of doctors who fought discriminatory practices in medical aids and put their own safety on the line to treat political prisoners and those injured in riots who were too afraid to use public hospitals.
Dr Jeff Govender, who joined the guild in 1983, said the body also established one of the first capitationbased managed healthcare systems in South Africa.
A capitation-based model is one where doctors receive a single fixed monthly payment for enrolled health plan members.
“Dr Moodliar and other leaders were our role models. We came through the ranks under their able and inspirational leadership, which entailed significant sacrifice and personal risk,” Govender said.
Moodliar said the guild for doctors and dentists had been established in 1981.
“One of the issues that brought us together was that medical aids were only contracting with a selected group of practitioners. “We fought for our patients to go to the doctors of their choice,” he said.
“We started with about 20 doctors but grew to 120.”
Govender said: “It is heartening that we continue to remain united.“
Moodliar recalled how he once had to work through the night to treat more than 40 people injured in a political protest in Graaff-Reinet.
“People were too scared to go to the hospital as they . . . would be arrested.”
Govender said that at the time of the northern areas riots in 1990 they worked by candle- and lamplight as the electricity was cut.
“The Langa Massacre took place about 100m from my practice,” Naidoo said.
“People were so scared. We had to help as many as we could. Those who had to go to Livingstone Hospital were sent there with a different diagnosis, as those who arrived there with a gunshot wound would have been arrested.”
Govender said the reunion would also honour doctors’ spouses, who had played a vital role in hosting meetings at their homes and supporting the work of the guild.
The reunion will take place at the Radisson Blu Hotel, with eMD Practice Management Company as the main sponsor.