Conclusion

TL;DRAbstract

In the late 1990s, when aids activists and medical practitioners first started demanding a national mtctp programme, the government said it was ‘unaffordable’. This discourse remained hegemonic even after studies were published (and presented in the form of affidavits) showing that the health sector would almost certainly save money by implementing such a programme. It was only after being ordered to do so by the Constitutional Court in 2002, that the government started rolling out mtctp. The discourse of unaffordability was also used to justify the government's initial refusal to provide haart through the public sector. But as it became clear during the course of 2003 that public pressure and political expediency were making this inevitable, government discourse shifted in subtle ways. Rather than arguing that haart was simply unaffordable, the government highlighted the complexities of aids treatment, and the need for effective and ‘sustainable’ interventions. A sustainable programme

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