Why we should save the TAC
COUPLE of days ago a friend of mine asked me whether the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) still exists. I have no idea what prompted the question but I answered: “Actually, yes it is still alive, but barely. They are raising funds to make sure the organisation can continue doing its work.”
He chuckled, suggesting that surely there is no need since, as the name of the organisation indicates, it was started to fight for treatment of HIV/Aids and won that battle?
My friend is profoundly and worryingly mistaken. But today is World Aids Day, and this is the perfect opportunity to celebrate the history of the TAC, and explain why we should all respond generously to the fundraising campaign to sustain the work of this critically important civil society organisation.
The TAC in some ways has been a victim of its most public success. It remains the best example of successful legal activism in post-apartheid South Africa. I remember sitting with the national schools development debate team in the constitutional court when the victory to have anti-retroviral drugs given to pregnant moms was being confirmed by the court. It was a historic day, of course, not just in the fight against HIV/Aids, but also in entrenching the doctrine of constitutional supremacy.
The Constitutional Court, as a result of the excellent work done by the TAC, was able to carefully balance the need to stay out of the business of the government, with the government’s entitlement to make policies it wants to, while making it clear that Parliament and the executive are subservient to the constitution and its demands for the progressive realisation of health rights within the available state resources.
But that’s the historic applause. Unfortunately, many of us misread the legal victory, as my friend has clearly done, assuming that was “it” for the TAC, and its existence. Reality is not so neat. You cannot legislate good governance. And you cannot legislate faithful compliance with the judgments of the Constitutional Court.
The TAC has won important legal battles but the war against HIV/Aids has not yet been won. That is why the TAC must continue to exist and needs our collective financial support to do so.
Here are some of the practical challenges that continue. Professor Francois Venter, one of the best HIV clinicians in the world, has warned that the biggest battle is to fix the distributions system for getting
Adrugs out to people living with HIV/Aids. Too many patients, especially in the worstaffected provinces such as the Free State and Eastern Cape, often have to come back to public health facilities after being told that these places have run out of stock.
Other problems include poor health literacy, which means that TAC volunteers, often working with health professionals in our communities, assist by making sure that HIV and TB patients understand the drugs they take, how to take them, the dangers of stopping treatment and so on. This also is an example of the TAC not just talking shop, but being practically involved in our communities in achieving better health outcomes.
The legal battles have to continue, too. If we take the history of discrimination against people infected with HIV in the SANDF, for example, there is a clear need to continue to change illegal workplace policies within the state and the private sector. Legal activism is also necessary to ensure compliance with court orders.
While the TAC has evolved into a savvy civil society organisation that uses many tactics – legal, political and social – to achieve its activist aims, the strategies are expensive, and none of these can be abandoned. The cost of public interest litigation, involving just one case like the SANDF ones, can run into millions.
We need to keep things real today as we celebrate milestones in the fight against HIV/Aids on World Aids Day. Yes, there is a lot to smile about – the government has come a long way from the days of Aids denialism and our life expectancy has improved, in part, because of rational policies finally being adopted by the state.
But discrimination continues, the public health system in places like the Eastern Cape is on the brink of collapse, operational inefficiencies spell danger for poor patients waiting for drugs and so on.
This is why we should all go to www.tac.org.za/donate and give whatever we can to ensure the work of this excellent, exemplary civil society organisation continues. Not because we are anti-government, but because it is our collective responsibility as active citizens to do our bit. Long may the work of the TAC continue.