Durban’s King Edward VIII Hospital is being renamed after political activist Victoria Mxenge, who had completed a midwifery course at the hospital and subsequently became a community nurse in Umlazi. She later studied law and was admitted as an attorney.
She was killed in August 1985, in her driveway in front of her children, by four members of what is believed to have been a government “death squad”.
Sunday Tribune reports that she was murdered just four years after her husband, Griffiths Mxenge, was abducted and killed, also by a “death squad”. The couple was survived by two sons and a daughter.
Health MEC Nomagugu Simelane said plans were already under way regarding the renaming of the hospital.
Mxenge’s eldest son, Mbasa Mxenge, said: “At some point our mother studied and worked there, and naming it after her warms our hearts.”
Sunday Tribune Pressreader article – Hospital to be renamed after activist (Open access)
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