Mon séjour en Afrique du Sud (Cape Town)

The City of Cape Town’s director of health Ivan Toms, was found dead in his Mowbray home yesterday morning, police said.

Police spokesperson Superintendent Billy Jones said foul play was not suspected.

He said police used a key from a neighbour to gain access to Toms’ home at about 9.30am after colleagues became concerned that he had not turned up for work.

Toms’ body was found lying on the bed. “There were no signs of forced entry, and there was no sign of a possible robbery.

“The deceased had no external wounds to the body,” Jones said. “But, of course, the normal post-mortem will be conducted,” he said.

Toms, who was born in 1953, attained a medical degree at the University of Cape Town before being conscripted in 1978 for service in the SA National Defence Force (SANDF). He carried out his term as a non-combatant doctor.

On his return to Cape Town, he played a leading role in setting up a clinic in the burgeoning squatter settlement of Crossroads, 15km outside Cape Town. He was the only doctor there and had to attend to thousands of patients.

Outraged by the brutalities committed by the security forces as the apartheid government sought to clear the area of shacks, Toms – then a lieutenant – vowed never to serve the SANDF in any capacity.

He became a founder member of the End Conscription Campaign, and, in 1985, fasted for three weeks in Cape Town’s St George’s Cathedral in support of the call for troops not to be deployed in black townships.

“As a Christian I am obliged to say no, to say never again will I put on that SANDF uniform,” he said.

As a result, he, like other members of the campaign were subjected to systematic intimidation and harassment by the defence force’s dirty tricks brigade. The smear campaign questioned Toms’ sexuality.

In 1987, he defied the call-up for a one month SANDF camp and symbolically handed in his uniform at the reporting depot.

For this, he was sentenced to 21 months’ in Pollsmoor Prison, of which he served nine.

In 1991, Toms became the national co-ordinator of the National Progressive Primary Healthcare Network, responsible for developing a national Aids programme.

In 1996 he moved into local government. In 2002, he was appointed Cape Town’s director of health services.

He led the battle against tuberculosis and HIV/Aids, promoting the use of antiretrovirals. Toms was also an outspoken advocate of gay rights.

Two years ago, President Thabo Mbeki awarded him the Order of the Baobab in Bronze, in recognition of what the citation said was his “outstanding contribution to the struggle against apartheid and sexual discrimination”.

A friend, Democratic Alliance Western Cape MPL Robin Carlisle, described his death as a “tragic and terrible loss for Cape Town”.

“Small in stature, gentle and witty, he was the bravest of the brave,” Carlisle said.