Thomas Johnson - Medical Blog

Dr Beth Engelbrecht pushed off a 'burning platform' Dr Keith Cloete replaced Dr Beth Engelbrecht as head of the Western Cape Health Department (WCHD) on 1 April 2020. He was formerly the deputy director general of the department. No reason for the change was given. Engelbrect replaced Prof. Craig Househam in 2015. She was the then premier Helen Zille’s appointee. He was in the job since 2002. Engelbrecht’s short term in this plum post, particularly after her position was affirmed after the DA was re-elected in the May 2019 general election, is curious. I dealt with Engelbrect since 2017. I frequently contacted her after my mother died under suspicious circumstances at Groote Schuur Hospital in July 2017 seeking answers (see in this blog). And later, the last time in November 2019, occasionally emailed her with thoughts, suggestions and complaints about the care I received as a patient at WC’s public health facilities. While she was approachable in that she at ...

Last night President Cyril Ramaphosa announced the lockdown would be reduced to level 3 , including the Western Cape which has highest infections, in a bid to get the economy moving again. Reducing restrictions to level 3 may be pragmatic, as it's being called, but see the infection numbers rise again. Government gave in - the rational among us are glad the decision is not ours - to the end lockdown movement. The awful decision of staying alive and keeping one's job, and for companies profitability, has been made. A bad decision, but not an easy one. But one can be certain when infections and deaths rise - "bring out the mortuary vans" as the director-general of health Dr Anban Pillay said in yesterday's Sunday Times to a question about the economy - and overwhelm the health system and society and economy tries to cope, the end lockdown cabal - the elite, privileged and executives - shall be silent, hiding as always in their bunkers.  Government will be blamed...

In SA, like US, the right are once again exploiting blacks - with the pandemic, black sickness and death. They pretend they're concerned about poor and unemployed blacks who, they say, shall (note not might;  they're adamant, no room for speculation) die in far greater numbers - PANDenialist: 29 times - than Covid-19. This group includes PANdenialist  (and here ), DA's John Steenhuisen and Helen Zille, Allan Gray's CEO Andrew Lapping , right-wing media ( BizNews and Politicsweb their editors and contributors; News24's Adriaan Basson has, as usual, flip-flopped to the end lockdown camp), IRR, FMF and the usual big business cabal. They want the lockdown to end, not for themselves, you know, but the country's poor and unemployed (non-whites), people they've never thought about until now. Suddenly they're all humanitarians. They forget, though, poverty is entrenched in SA, before and after apartheid, and millions of people didn't die because of i...

I previously  wrote a group calling themselves PANDA (Pandemic - Data Analysis) in a report stated South Africa's lockdown shall kill more than Covid-19. I said they were spreading dangerous fake news and alt-facts. PANDenialists (as I call them) is a "group" of two actuaries, an economist and medical doctor specially formed to present their (mis)interpretation of the data. They're described as a "multi-disciplinary initiative", i.e. an ad hoc action group. Only the two actuaries' - Nick Hudson, CEO of private equity firm SANA Partners, and Peter Castleden - names appear in news reports. As I said, they have a business agenda, and unlike other groups formed in response to the pandemic don't represent medical, academic, or similar organisations. They've been at it again , saying South Africa's deaths shall be 20 000, less than other projections despite the fact that infections and deaths are still increasing. They expect lower deaths b...

Demands to end the lockdown are reaching a crescendo. It's mainly from elite whites who've never experienced the poverty they say they're concerned about. The latest is the DA's finance spokesman Geordin Hill-Lewis , who incidentally doesn't understand economics. This is similar to, although not aggressively, to America's end lockdown protests, The couple of black critics  of the lockdown are not calling for the end, but correctly, questioning ''irrational" regulations . See the difference - who is smarter? While it's fair they want to maintain their status - who doesn't? - they're not really concerned about the poor and unemployed who as always are ignored. The economy has been in the doldrums for a decade but these rich executives - all white - enabled the ANC government's mismanagement and didn't speak up. They were silent about what the economic implosion was doing to the poor and unemployed. They didn't care as lo...

Panda (Pandemic ~ Data Analysis) actuaries Peter Castleden's and Nick Hudson's and other members', an economist and doctor,  opinion the "unintended consequences of the lockdown will [allegedly] kill 29 times more people than the virus" has received wide coverage from South Africa's credulous media (also here , etc), who quote anyone with a title about the coronavirus/Covid-19 even if they're not public health experts. It's fake news the socio-economic consequences - unemployment and poverty - of the lockdown (which they ignore is being gradually eased and best practice followed around the world) shall cause more deaths than Covid-19. "Poverty" is not listed under direct and other causes of death in official statistics . While it's true poor social conditions can reduce life expectancy, its connection to the causal factors of mortality - hunger, inadequate, medical care, substance abuse, etc - is indirect. Other factors must be take...