The annual conference of the Public Health Association of South Africa (PHASA) took place from the 17th-19th of September in Athlone, Cape Town, with the theme The Right to Health: 25 years into our constitutional democracy.
Since news of David Sanders’ sudden and untimely death broke on Saturday morning the tributes, messages and condolences via emails, whatsapp, phone calls, Facebook and Twitter have not stopped pouring in.
We, the School of Public Health at the University of the Western Cape, condemn the physical and verbal attacks on our foreign sisters and brothers from Africa in the strongest possible terms.
Are the essential structures and attitudes in place to honour the active roles of communities in health and support them? Are our health systems really calibrated enough locally and do theyinvest in public health grounded in communities?
Like many public health practitioners, I first got to know David Sanders through his book, ‘The Struggle for Health’. I read it in 1991, six years after it was published. I still have that book, and it sits in my current office.
Amid the huge gap that has been left by David’s death, most intensely for his family, the outpouring of tributes and messages is testament to the countless individuals he influenced across the corners of the world.