|
|
 |
|
| Speech |
|
|
|
Kerry Cullinan
The 2008 Excellence in Media Award, Community
Health-e News Service
It’s a particular honor to get an award from the Global Health Council as we share the common goal of working toward a better and more equitable health-care service for all people. The Global Health Council also understands the important role that the media can play in highlighting health issues.
Health-e News Service is a small, non-profit news agency based in South Africa. We are a unique media model as we supply newspapers, magazines, radio stations and from this year, television stations with health news and features. All our stories are also put onto our website. So when we have a big story, we are able to maximize its impact by covering all media.
Our country is the most unequal in the world. The developed and developing worlds collide and we experience the worst of both, health-wise. There is growing problem of diseases that have become associated with a sedentary “Western lifestyle” and diet high in fat and sugar – heart attacks, hypertension and diabetes. Then we also have the diseases that are exacerbated by poverty and poor living conditions, namely tuberculosis, malnutrition and gastroenteritis.
We also have one of the highest HIV/AIDS rates in the world and the largest population of people living with HIV. Last year, we lost about 340,000 people to AIDS-related deaths.
Apartheid destroyed African families, and hundreds of thousands of men spent most of their lives in male-only mine hostels far from their families in rural areas where sexually transmitted infections were common.
Since the collapse of apartheid 14 years ago, black people who had been confined to certain rural areas unless they had work permits, flocked to cities in search of better prospects. But many have simply found themselves in shack settlements on the outskirts of the city, vulnerable to diseases that thrive where sanitation is poor and there is a shortage of clean running water. Research shows that those in informal settlements who live transient lives away from the stabilizing influence of family networks have the highest HIV rate.
In addition to our country’s socio-economic and health problems, the imagination of our President, Thabo Mbeki, was captured by AIDS denialists – largely from the US – who dispute that HIV causes AIDS. Since 1999, he has expressed the view that a virus can not cause a syndrome, that antiretroviral drugs are toxic and that AIDS is just a new name for old diseases. Meanwhile, our health minister promotes so-called traditional remedies and things like garlic and beetroot as HIV treatments.
It is thus often difficult – and sometimes extremely painful and frustrating – to be a health reporter in our country. We at Health-e are the longest surviving HIV/AIDS reporters in the country and have often been at the receiving end of verbal lashings from government health officials and AIDS denialists. We have been accused of being “agents of pharmaceutical companies” for writing about the positive effects of antiretroviral therapy and of being against the democratic government.
But we have a two-fold duty – to provide accurate health information to our people so that they can make better informed choices about their health, and to keep those in power accountable. So we have continued to do what we do best, and it is precisely because we are a non-profit organization that we are able to be an independent voice. We don’t rely on advertising revenue from government or big corporations and thus not susceptible to undue influence but can write about those health issues that affect the poorest people in our country. I am thus very grateful to our donors, the Atlantic Philanthropies, our main donor, the Open Society Foundation, which supports our TV project, and, very recently, Johns Hopkins Health and Education South Africa.
This award is a fitting tribute to my excellent team comprising of Anso Thom (print editor), Khopotso Bodibe (radio editor), Nina Taaibosch (office manager/ webmaster), Mabutho Ngcobo (radio journalist) and Anna-Maria Lombard (TV producer).
Although we are very small, independent and depend on fundraising to cover costs as the SA media does not pay much, we have won a number of major awards in our country, including the CNN Africa Award for HIV/AIDS reporting.
I am very proud of my hard-working team who do their work out of concern for our fellow South Africans and out of commitment to improve South Africa for future generations. Please look at our website, www.health-e.org.za for more information about what we do.
Thank you for giving us global recognition and shining a light on what is sometimes a lonely and thankless task.
Kerry Cullinan
Managing Editor, Health-e News Service.
|
|
|
