Winnie Mandela by Anné Mariè du Preez Bezdrob Page B
Authors: Anné Mariè du Preez Bezdrob
Tags: Winnie Mandela : a Life
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into openings to keep out the elements. Malnutrition was common, not only because many families could not afford adequate food, but also because young, uneducated motherswere often ignorant about proper feeding. Research she carried out in Alexandra township to establish the infant mortality rate indicated an alarming ten deaths in every 1 000. As a result of relationships between young urban women and migrant workers – who most often had wives at home – thousands of township babies were illegitimate. Without any means of support, many of the desperate mothers abandoned their newborn infants, often leaving them at Bara.
The first time Winnie had to deal with an abandoned baby, she asked one of her friends, Matthew Nkoane, who was a senior reporter with the Golden City Post , to help her trace the mother by publishing the details of the case. It worked, and after reuniting mother and child, Winnie helped her to cope with the initial difficulties. After that, she and Matthew collaborated on more cases, tracing not only runaway mothers but also the relatives of elderly patients who had been left at the hospital. The Golden City Post also helped raise funds for the burial of patients who died at the hospital, but whose bodies remained unclaimed. Matthew later joined the breakaway Pan Africanist Congress (PAC), but despite their political differences he and Winnie remained friends for many years.
One of the young doctors at Bara was Nthatho Motlana, who had studied for a BSc degree at Fort Hare before attending the medical school at the University of the Witwatersrand and going on to specialise in paediatrics. Like most of his peers at Fort Hare, he had joined the ANC Youth League and later became its secretary. During the Defiance Campaign he was arrested with Nelson Mandela and thousands of others, given a nine-month suspended sentence and then banned for five years. Motlana later became a leading political figure in Soweto. As chairman of the Committee of Ten, the sprawling township’s unofficial representative body, he was arguably the most prominent man in Soweto in the 1970s. He and his wife Sally became friends with both Winnie and Nelson Mandela, whom he had met at Fort Hare, and when Mandela was imprisoned he appointed Motlana one of the guardians of his children.
It was inevitable that Winnie’s path would cross Motlana’s at Bara, and like the rest of the staff, he was impressed by her. They got on well, and in later years he would say he found working with her both stimulating and encouraging because she was always cheerful and laughed easily – valuable attributes when working under great strain and in difficult circumstances. Winnie had profound concern for the welfare of others, and would assist them even at the expense of her own comfort and safety. Motlana recalled that she always had an acute social conscience, and thought nothing of spending part of her own small salary to help others. She was only a young woman, but frequently spent her free time scouring the townships for the destitute and elderly who had no one to care for them. She often phoned Motlana in the middle of the night and asked him to treat someone who needed medical attention.
For Winnie there was no such thing as an insurmountable obstacle, and when she was convinced that she was right she would not budge under any circumstances. Her colleagues at Bara admired the fact that she was prepared to stand up for her patients against those in authority, both inside and outside the system. Once, Dr Motlana diagnosed pellagra in a patient, and ordered him to take sick leave for three weeks. But the man’s employer refused to release him for the prescribed period, and the patient turned to Winnie, as his social worker, for help. Undaunted, the young woman wrote a scathing letter to the white employer justifying the doctor’s orders, and the patient got his sick leave.
Throughout her years at college and during her first year of work, Winnie
The first time Winnie had to deal with an abandoned baby, she asked one of her friends, Matthew Nkoane, who was a senior reporter with the Golden City Post , to help her trace the mother by publishing the details of the case. It worked, and after reuniting mother and child, Winnie helped her to cope with the initial difficulties. After that, she and Matthew collaborated on more cases, tracing not only runaway mothers but also the relatives of elderly patients who had been left at the hospital. The Golden City Post also helped raise funds for the burial of patients who died at the hospital, but whose bodies remained unclaimed. Matthew later joined the breakaway Pan Africanist Congress (PAC), but despite their political differences he and Winnie remained friends for many years.
One of the young doctors at Bara was Nthatho Motlana, who had studied for a BSc degree at Fort Hare before attending the medical school at the University of the Witwatersrand and going on to specialise in paediatrics. Like most of his peers at Fort Hare, he had joined the ANC Youth League and later became its secretary. During the Defiance Campaign he was arrested with Nelson Mandela and thousands of others, given a nine-month suspended sentence and then banned for five years. Motlana later became a leading political figure in Soweto. As chairman of the Committee of Ten, the sprawling township’s unofficial representative body, he was arguably the most prominent man in Soweto in the 1970s. He and his wife Sally became friends with both Winnie and Nelson Mandela, whom he had met at Fort Hare, and when Mandela was imprisoned he appointed Motlana one of the guardians of his children.
It was inevitable that Winnie’s path would cross Motlana’s at Bara, and like the rest of the staff, he was impressed by her. They got on well, and in later years he would say he found working with her both stimulating and encouraging because she was always cheerful and laughed easily – valuable attributes when working under great strain and in difficult circumstances. Winnie had profound concern for the welfare of others, and would assist them even at the expense of her own comfort and safety. Motlana recalled that she always had an acute social conscience, and thought nothing of spending part of her own small salary to help others. She was only a young woman, but frequently spent her free time scouring the townships for the destitute and elderly who had no one to care for them. She often phoned Motlana in the middle of the night and asked him to treat someone who needed medical attention.
For Winnie there was no such thing as an insurmountable obstacle, and when she was convinced that she was right she would not budge under any circumstances. Her colleagues at Bara admired the fact that she was prepared to stand up for her patients against those in authority, both inside and outside the system. Once, Dr Motlana diagnosed pellagra in a patient, and ordered him to take sick leave for three weeks. But the man’s employer refused to release him for the prescribed period, and the patient turned to Winnie, as his social worker, for help. Undaunted, the young woman wrote a scathing letter to the white employer justifying the doctor’s orders, and the patient got his sick leave.
Throughout her years at college and during her first year of work, Winnie
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