Let’s hush about children dying from hunger

It’s one of those grim sets of statistics that this blighted country excels at.

In the past three years, 2 818 children under the age of five have died of hunger in public hospitals. And this is at the lower end of probability.

Factor in rural isolation during the lockdown, hospitals, and clinics accepting only Covid patients, and the abandoning of school feeding schemes, and the true figure will be far higher.

Aside from the difficulties in collecting accurate figures during the past two years of the pandemic, the figures also show signs of being heavily massaged for political reasons.

It does not seem believable that, as the department of health claims, malnutrition deaths actually dropped in 2020-21 by 25% to 775, before rising to 1 009 in 2021-22, still below the 2019-20 level of 1 034.

And while it is credible that the well-organised Western Cape recorded only 38 deaths over those years, it is unlikely that the Eastern Cape recorded over 40% fewer deaths than KwaZulu-Natal (412 to 721).

There are good reasons for political massaging. The ANC is highly sensitive not only to deaths from starvation, but any suggestion that it worsened the situation with its pandemic control measures.

Ask Glenda Gray. Two years ago, almost to the day, Prof Gray, president of the SA Medical Research Council (MRC) and a scientist with a considerable international reputation, was in the crosshairs of a pair of ruthless assassins. Character assassins.

Out to humiliate her, destroy her reputation and strip her of employment – present and future – were then health minister Zweli Mkhize, and his sidekick, the department’s then acting director-general Dr Anban Pillay.

Gray, who also served on the ministerial advisory committee (MAC) on Covid, had incurred the displeasure of the gunslingers over remarks critical of the government’s handling of the pandemic.

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She had said that one of the consequences of the harsh lockdowns and the closure of school feeding schemes would be an increase in child malnutrition.

This, she said, was already being reflected in the patient intake at Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital in Gauteng. Gray was right on the first statement, but wrong on the specifics of the latter.

But the ANC is not interested in reality. It’s interested in managing perceptions. Gray’s later correction of the single erroneous statistic did not appease them.

Mkhize – a suave operator with an anatomist’s instinct of the exact spot to best slip a stiletto between the ribs – unleashed Pillay, who called Gray a liar and demanded that she be disciplined for the harm she had caused to the country’s reputation.

The MRC was quick to say “Ja, baas!” It immediately apologised to Mkhize and forbade Gray to speak to the media. Her ignominious exit at the behest of the ANC seemed assured.

Fortunately, for Gray, an almighty storm of biblical plague proportions descended around Mkhize and Pillay.

Hundreds of the world’s top medical scientists sent an open letter to the department and MRC; dozens of medical organisations expressed their displeasure.

Gray survived at the MRC, which hastily backed down, but was sacked from the MAC.

In one of those rare turns of fate that has one chortling with delight, it is Mkhize and Pillay that have been consigned to the rubbish bin, at least for the moment.

Mkhize had to resign from President Cyril Ramaphosa’s Cabinet because of being implicated in the Digital Vibes tender fraud.

The Hawks’ finding on Pillay – a particularly nasty piece of work in a government where there is stiff competition to be a prick – was similarly damning.

Pillay was suspended and faces criminal charges.

Both men will likely be back. That’s the ANC way. Meanwhile, the children keep dying. But for goodness sake, Prof G, don’t you dare tell the world.