Independent On-line, 20 November 2002, MasterCard pledges half a million for Aids
South African
companies are now joining hands to fight the deepening crisis of Aids.
The latest high profile corporate involvement comes from MasterCard Southern
Africa. In an emotionally-charged ceremony on Tuesday, Mastercard pledged R500 000
to St Mary's Hospital in Mariannhill, a private State-aided Catholic mission
hospital outside Pinetown, servicing a population of 750 000.
Handing over a giant facsimile of the cheque to Douglas Ross, the hospital's
superintendent, on Tuesday, Eddie Grobler, senior vice president and general
manager of MasterCard Southern Africa said that South Africans had a long
"culture" of getting involved. As responsible corporate citizens there
is a deep need to get closer to communities."
In forming this new relationship with those on the "battleground" of
HIV/Aids, Grobler said that his company was saluting "extraordinary deeds
and extraordinary attitudes by extraordinary people".
Mastercard
has also pledged its double-ringed logo, more associated with credit cards, ATM
machines and golf sponsorship, one step further with a sponsored national
television advertising campaign showing the work that the hospital does in
caring for Aids infected babies.
Accepting the cheque, which kicks off a
"long-haul" commitment, Ross said that it could not have come at a
more opportune time because hospital figures had risen to an average of five
thousand patients a month.
"In this province an estimated five million
people have Aids, most of them women and young children. You only have to look
at our outpatients departments to realise that the flood of very ill and dying
patients is growing daily."
Ross said that to cope with the numbers of deaths,
the hospital - which celebrated its 75th anniversary last month - has had to
triple the size of its mortuary.
The donation will be used to enhance the hospital's
programme of care and treatment and to strengthen the needs of the community
where there is a high incidence of poverty, malnutrition and a poor overall
level of health. - Independent News Network - Group Aids writer