“Oh no, no! I have never applied or aspired to be Director-General,” laughs Yogan Pillay. “That is a terrible job. You have to deal with all the politics. It is a thankless job and you are always getting bashed. I prefer to stay with the technical work.”
Pillay qualified as a psychologist and worked as a university lecturer before moving into health management and getting a PhD in health policy and management from Johns Hopkins University in the US. Pillay is proudest of three things during his departmental career: the improved access to antiretroviral medicine, which resulted in a substantial increase in life expectancy; reducing maternal, baby and child deaths; and reducing the transmission of HIV from mothers to babies.In 2009, men lived until 55 and women until 58. A decade later, male life expectancy is 62 and females’ is 68 – in large part thanks to easy access to ARVs.
When Mel Freeman, the chief director of NCDs, retired a few years back, his portfolio was also added to Pillay’s plate. “What changed the trajectory of transforming the health system was the introduction of fiscal federalism in 1999-2000, where provinces got an equitable share of the budget and could decide what they should fund,” says Pillay.
Pillay answers his own question with characteristic diplomacy: “In some areas, possibly, in others possibly not.” Francois Venter, one of the country’s foremost HIV clinicians, describes Pillay as “a refreshing straight-talker in a sea of HIV rhetoric and platitudes”. Popo Maja, the health department’s director of communications, says Pillay is “an unsung hero of public health here and abroad”.
But Yawa said that the fact that Pillay had been in the department during Tshabala-Msimang’s reign “brings into focus the role of a departmental official in fulfilling their mandate towards patients versus their role in relation to their superiors. We strongly believe more could have been done by Dr Pillay and others.”
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