Inkosi Albert Luthuli: A victim of racial segregation in South African healthcare

IOL News

15-05-2025

A reopened inquest into Inkosi Albert Luthuli's death on July 21, 1967 is being held at the Pietermaritzburg High Court.
Image: Independent Media Archives
Had he not been a black person, the critically injured Inkosi Albert Luthuli would have been given better treatment and his life would possibly have been saved at the racially divided Stanger Provincial Hospital, Dr Sibusiso Johannes Nsele said on Thursday.
The KwaZulu-Natal Department of Health's senior forensic pathologist was continuing to give evidence at the reopened inquest into the cause of Luthuli's death held at the Pietermaritzburg High Court.
He said that in the years of Luthuli's life and after his death, the hospital, like all government institutions in the country, applied policies of racial segregation.
Responding to a question from evidence leader Advocate Ncedile Dunywa from the National Prosecuting Authority that Luthuli, who was partly unconscious on arrival at the hospital, should have been given better medical care than what he was offered, Nsele said, 'Yes, that is correct'.
Luthuli died at Stanger Provincial Hospital a few hours after he was found semi-conscious on the morning of July 21, 1967, on the railway bridge of the Mvoti River in Groutville, Stanger.
The findings of an initial inquiry held the same year Luthuli died, stated that Luthuli was involved in a fatal goods steam train accident.
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However, several witnesses, including experts in various fields, who testified at the current inquest, have rejected the claim, saying Luthuli's injuries indicated that he was assaulted before being placed on the bridge.
Nsele said during the apartheid system, the hospital was divided into two sections - one 'which was for a particular race (white) and the other sections, which also belonged to different race groups (Africans, Coloureds and Indians)'.
He painted a scenario of the medical team at the hospital that neglected their duties of giving Luthuli urgent attention, even after they had realised the severity of his injuries.
An ambulance brought Luthuli to the hospital at 11.45 am, where he was immediately attended to by senior medical superintendent Dr Gwendoline Mary Gregarsan, who was not a specialist in the field of neurosurgery.
Luthuli was only attended to by neurosurgeon Dr Mauritus J. Joubert at 2.20 pm, which was five minutes before he passed away at 2.25 pm.
'When one looked at the time at which Inkosi (Luthuli) was admitted, from the records, Dr Gregarsan immediately attended to Inkosi, the description from the records were that there were many injuries around the head, and she further made an observation that there was a scalp fracture.
'That alone would have guided her to realise that immediate care at a specialist level was required.
'The expectation would have been that the neurosurgeon, Dr Joubert, would have been consulted much earlier, soon after Dr Gregarsan had assessed the patient,' he said.
When Dunywa asked him if that meant that Luthuli's life would have been saved had it not been for the effect of the apartheid government's racial segregation, Nsele said he was aware that state resources in various spheres, including in the health sector, were not dispersed equally (among racial groups).
'The funding with regard to services and resources that would be given to the African or black communities was inferior to that given to the European or white communities,' said Nsele.
On Thursday, Nsele said Luthuli's condition required that he be transferred to the better-equipped King Edward VIII Hospital in Durban.
Both hospitals are 83,4 km and an hour away from each other.
'Stanger Provincial Hospital was not, and even as we speak today, suited to manage patients who need neurosurgeons,' he said.
Nsele said Dr Gregarsan was, according to the records, aware that Luthuli's conditions needed to be handled by a neurosurgeon, which was not available at Stanger Hospital.
'The injuries he had sustained warranted that he receive specialised care.
'But Chief Albert Luthuli was nevertheless made to remain at Stanger Provincial Hospital,' Dunywa said.
Nsele concurred with Dunywa's observation that at Stanger Hospital, Luthuli was not given proper care while he was alive and even after he had died, as the medical practitioners did not do due diligence in handling him.
Nsele said that Dr Jakobus Johannes van Zyle, who was junior doctor at the time, had 90 minutes after declaring Luthuli dead, hurriedly produced a postmortem report, which was substandard.