A fitting memorial

THE NELSON Mandela Children’s Hospital was officially opened on Friday, giving hope to a country in dire need of just that and recalibrating our attention to our greatest asset – the children of this nation, who are our future.

The hospital is not, as the statesman’s widow pointed out, for the elite, rather a benchmark for what every paediatric ward and every children’s hospital should not just aspire to but actually achieve.

It’s a benchmark not only of medical excellence but of community involvement too, from corporate involvement right down to the piggy banks of children themselves thinking of others less fortunate, who need specialised medical care.

This is perhaps the hospital’s greatest achievement, acting as a reminder of the man widely – and correctly – regarded as the father of the modern, liberated South Africa and what he stood for.

It is a living memorial to a man who led this country but gave up a third of his salary every month to establish a fund for the benevolence of children.

It is a daily reminder of a brand of leadership rarely seen before or after; of service before self, of selflessness rather than aggrandisement and enrichment.

The children’s hospital is a wonderful mechanism not just to remind us but to inspire future generations in a tangible and practical way of the kind of people we need to be, the kind of leaders we need to nurture and encourage if we are one day to regain our rightful place in the world, as a moral compass, a society where fairness is paramount, where no one is above the law – and where our first citizen behaves as if he was the last.

The world has rarely seen anything like it. The tragedy is that we have a long wait before we see his like again.