Basson teaching on voluntary basis - Mediclinic

Cape Town - Dr Wouter Basson’s involvement in the training of student doctors was on a no-compensation, voluntary community-service basis as part of an initiative driven by a group of doctors, Mediclinic Southern Africa said on Wednesday.

This was in response to the uproar following Stellenbosch University’s Tygerberg Student Council’s call for Basson, dubbed “Dr Death”, to be barred from teaching its students.

Basson was the apartheid-era head of the chemical and biological warfare project for the government.

In a statement, the hospital group said the training programme was initiated by a group of doctors in an effort to “address an identified urgent training need for fourth- and fifth-year medical students doing a four-week internal medicine rotation”.

According to the Mediclinic website, Basson is a cardiologist who offers support services at its Durbanville and Panorama hospitals.

In 2013, he was found guilty of four counts of misconduct by the Health Professions Council of South Africa.

Mediclinic’s association is “merely practical in nature, pertaining to the use of our facilities”.

“As such we are not in a position to select participants. In addition, we must reiterate that doctors are independent practitioners and not employed by Mediclinic.

“We further cannot prohibit doctors who are registered with the HPCSA, including Dr Basson, from practising unless they are prevented by the law from doing so.”

Basson told The Star earlier he had “no idea what all the fuss is about”.

“I teach many groups of people and have received no complaints related to either the giving thereof or the quality thereof at all over years from any of my students,” Basson said.

This article first appeared on News24 – see here.