REPORTERS HAVE SHORT MEMORIES

Reporters in Swaziland have very short memories.

Yesterday (1 November 2007) both the Times of Swaziland and the Swazi Observer reported comments made by the Minister of Health and Social Welfare Njabulo Mabuza who invited the media to help his ministry in its attempt to improve health services in Swaziland.

According to the Observer report, ‘Mabuza said it is only through the co-operation with the media that they can be able to improve the current status quo in the health facilities.’

The Times reported Mabuza wanted the media’s help to publicise initiatives to improve the social welfare of Swazi citizens that the Ministry had underway.

Neither newspaper told us what these ‘initiatives’ actually were.

One ‘initiative’ might be to tackle the problems at the Mbabane Government Hospital. But the media would have difficulty in telling their readers about this because only in June 2007 Minister Mabuza banned health workers from talking to the media (but somehow both the Times and the Observer reports yesterday forgot to remind readers of this).

The ban came after the newspapers ran reports highlighting the impact of a critical drug shortage.

Workers were forbidden to have any type of communication, including interviews and casual or ‘indiscreet’ conversations, whether at clubs, hotels, bars or private parties. Journalists were also barred from Mbabane Government Hospital, the country's key medical facility, whose problems have been highlighted in the press. These problems were considered by the press to be typical of the wider crisis afflicting the healthcare system.

On 23 June 2007, the Times of Swaziland experienced the effects of the Minister’s censorship order when its photographer, Albert Masango, was denied access to the hospital. Hospital security harassed and pulled Masango out of the premises and carried him out to the gate.

Amid Masango’s protestations, the security personnel stressed that, in accordance with a new ‘law’, permission had to be obtained from either the Minister or his Principal Secretary before the media would be allowed to cover anything inside the hospital.

An official at a health facility in the central town of Manzini was quoted by the IRIN news agency that the regulation barring health personnel from speaking with the media was not new. ‘In fact, it began three ministers ago, but it is now being enforced because of all the stories about deaths in government hospitals.’