SINIKITHEMBA, the labour of hope and science at McCord Hospital in the era of HIV

293pp., b/w & colour illus., paperback, First SA Edition, Jacana, Johannesburg, 2026

ISBN: 9781431435999

An institutional history of McCord Hospital in Durban, from its humble founding as a mission hospital in 1909, through its role in apartheid-era resistance, to becoming an internationally recognised community of care, treatment and research in the fight against HIV/AIDS in the 1990s and early 2000s, to its unfortunate closure in 2013 due to the loss of international funding. Sinikithemba, which means ‘We Give Hope’ in isiZulu, was the name of McCord Hospital’s dedicated HIV clinic, established in 1996 in response to the escalating pandemic in KwaZulu-Natal.

As McCord scaled up its treatment programme and drew significant support through PEPFAR funding, the wider hospital community expanded to include scientists and professors, clinicians and researchers, midwives and nurses, volunteers and donors, patients and families, provincial officials and philanthropists, pop stars and prayer groups. The KZN Department of Health took over McCord Hospital in 2014 and converted it from a general hospital into a specialised public eye care facility.

"Among recent institutional histories in South Africa, Sinikithemba is quite simply one of the best. A long and meticulously researched work of medical history, here is a gripping account of a mission hospital and its hope-giving work at the height of the HIV/AIDS crisis. More than that, the authors paint a vivid picture of faith, politics, culture and globality and the utter humanity of those serving and being served inside a country struggling to find its place in the world. The book is unrivalled as contribution to the medical humanities in the first quarter of this century if only for its scholastic brilliance in being able to hold in tension living and dying, the local and the global, the state and missions, the organizational and the personal, all inside a cohesive and compelling narrative of a single institution on the east coast of South Africa. " Jonathan Jansen, Distinguished Professor of Education, Stellenbosch University

"Founded in 1909 by American medical missionaries and the remarkable local leader Katie Makhanya, McCord Hospital in Durban, South Africa, was built on an audacious vision of dignity, compassion, and healing for all, a vision it fiercely defended through apartheid's brutal machinery, political violence, racial segregation and economic hardship, quietly defying government orders and opening its doors wider when the world demanded it close them. When HIV/AIDS tore through KwaZulu-Natal with devastating force, McCord answered with its most powerful humane defiance yet, establishing Sinikithemba, a groundbreaking HIV clinic that wove together faith, science and community solidarity through support groups, international partnerships with Harvard and Yale, palliative care and community outreach. Sinikithemba's choir featured voices that carried survivor stories from the streets of Durban to the stages of Boston and beyond, raising millions and reaching world leaders. Sinikithemba is not merely the story of a hospital, it is a testament to what happens when faith, science and community refuse to surrender, and a powerful reminder that healing, at its most profound, is not a medical act but a deeply human one." Robert Trent Vinson, Director of the Carter G. Woodson Institute for African American & African Studies, University of Virginia

Jennifer Upton is a writer, editor and historian from Durban. Educated at the University of KwaZulu-Natal before pursuing her graduate studies in the UK, she has an MA in History from the University of Warwick and earned her PhD in English from the University of Cambridge. In addition to medical history, her research interests include life writing, literature and historiography.

Janet Giddy is a family physician with an MA in Public Health from the University of Cape Town. She also completed a Clinical Effectiveness Program at the Harvard School of Public Health. She has been involved in the education of nurses, doctors and medical students, and has participated in research studies in the field of HIV, TB, PMTCT and reproductive health.

Catherine Burns is a medical historian and historian of Africa educated at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johns Hopkins University, and Northwestern University. She inaugurated the first medical humanities interdisciplinary programme in the Southern African region. She is based at the University of Johannesburg.