Controversial former health minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang has been rescued from life in the backbenches of parliament to serve instead as the guardian of mother and child health in Africa.
Health experts and lobby groups reacted with shock on Friday at the news that Tshabalala-Msimang is now African Union Goodwill Ambassador and Champion for the Improvement of Maternal and Child Health in Africa beyond 2015.
Many were reduced to tears, others warned that Tshabalala-Msimang would now endanger the health of the entire continent rather than just South Africa.
After serving in the health portfolio for almost a decade, to which she was controversially re-appointed in 2004 by former president Thabo Mbeki, she was moved to Minister in the Presidency last year, when Mbeki was sacked.
She was replaced by Barbara Hogan, now Minister of Public Enterprises - a move that earned the ANC great praise from health pressure groups at the time.
Treatment Action Campaign General Secretary Vuyiseka Dubula on Friday said she was "shocked" by Tshabalala-Msimang's latest appointment.
"She has done very badly in this country (with respect to improving mother and child health), and now she is going to destroy the whole continent," Dubula said.
She said 400 out of every 100 000 mothers die each year in South Africa because they do not get proper after-birth care, and this had got worse under Tshabalala-Msimang's watch.
"Women are dying in our hospitals because of poor health care," she said.
She said she could not understand why African Union leaders would want to appoint her to such a position.
Another expert who works in the field said "I just feel like crying" upon hearing the news of Tshabalala-Msimang's recent appointment, adding that although she cannot do much damage in her new position, a more competent person could have done a lot of good.
She said the African Union probably had certain political reasons for appointing South Africa's former health minister, who pushed very strongly for a women and child agenda while in the Presidency.
President of the Pan-African Parliament Gertrude Mongella is in a similar position, being Goodwill Ambassador for the World Health Organisation's Africa region, but because she is a competent operator, she gets things done, the expert said.
Tshabalala-Msimang would in this capacity also be involved in the finalisation of AU documents about reproductive health care, women's rights and nutrition.
Her former spokesperson, Charity Bhengu, could not be contacted on Friday, but it is understood that Tshabalala-Msimang will continue in the AU position, even though she is not a minister anymore.
Tshabalala-Msimang, championing beetroot and garlic as a cure for Aids, was seen as the ambassador of Mbeki's denialist stance on the disease, which, according to experts, contributed to the high rate of mother and child deaths.
According to Health e-News the rate of mothers and children dying have increased under Tshabalala-Msimang to exceed figures for before 1994.
South Africa is one of only a few countries that will not meet the United Nations Millennium Development goal for reducing these rates by three-quarters by 2015.
Another expert said South Africa was one of only 10 out of 190 countries where the rate for mother and child mortality was actually getting worse.
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