On Monday, Dr Vejayand Indurjith “Vejay” Ramlakan appeared before a six-person tribunal, chaired by Judge Jeremiah Shongwe, of the Professional Conduct Committee of the Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA).
The tribunal was only able to deal with two applications peripheral, but related to, the main matter – a complaint by Graça Machel that Ramlakan had abused HPCSA ethical rules by breaching doctor-patient confidentiality in his book, Mandela’s Last Years: the story of Nelson Mandela’s final journey, by the head of his medical team (July 2017).
The first application was the HPCSA request, on behalf of Machel, that the proceedings to be held in camera; and the second a request that the hearing be postponed because Machel was unavailable.
Following detailed argument related to both applications, the panel dismissed the application for the matter to be heard in camera but allowed for the matter to be postponed to September 9-13 so that Machel could be there.
Advocate Harry van Bergen, counsel for the pro-forma complainant (i.e., the HPCSA, acting on Machel’s complaint), asked that the proceedings be held in camera to protect the information divulged by Ramlakan from being further disseminated because, as Machel had stated, “the publication of the book [had] caused me and my family great distress” and “the contents of the book [would] be traversed during the proceedings, leading to further disclosure”.
Van Bergen said that Ramlakan’s argument, “supported by the purported expert evidence of Jeremy Gordin,” that the proceedings would be in the public interest, was “misplaced” – because public interest and journalists were not relevant to the matter. Due to his professional relationship with a person or group of people, a doctor should not make “disclosures,” whereas a journalist was likely to do so. “Mr Gordin,” he added, “does not meet the requirements of an expert witness ... because he seems to pronounce on issues pertaining to the medical profession, which he is not competent to do.”