Mandela Launches Children's Hospital

 

JOHANNESBURG — Former President Nelson Mandela launched the fifth specialist children's hospital in Africa Friday, saying it was badly needed on a continent where millions who do not live to see their fifth birthday.

Mandela, who turned 91 on July 18, waved and greeted guests but no longer delivers speeches in public.

He said in a video message that African children deserve world-class treatment and the chance at a better future.

"This is not a luxury but a vital necessity that can no longer be delayed," he said.

The Nelson Mandela Children's Hospital will have a minimum of 200 beds and will house centers for the treatment of cancer, heart, liver, kidney and other ailments. Construction of the rands 1 billion (about $800 million) hospital will begin in late 2010 and is expected to be completed in 18 months.

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African American Woman Named Surgeon General

 

President Barack Obama turned to the Deep South for the next surgeon general, choosing a rural Alabama family physician who made headlines with fierce determination to rebuild her nonprofit medical clinic in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

Dr. Regina Benjamin is known along Alabama's impoverished Gulf Coast as a country doctor who makes house calls and doesn't turn away patients who can't pay — even as she's had to find the money to rebuild a clinic repeatedly destroyed by hurricanes and once even fire.

"For all the tremendous obstacles that she has overcome, Regina Benjamin also represents what's best about health care in America, doctors and nurses who give and care and sacrifice for the sake of their patients," Obama said Monday in introducing his choice for a job known as America's doctor.

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