Frances Rix Ames (; 20 April 1920 – 11 November 2002) was a South African neurologist, psychiatrist, and human rights activist, best known for leading the medical ethics inquiry into the death of anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko, who died from medical neglect after being tortured in police custody. When the South African Medical and Dental Council (SAMDC) declined to discipline the chief district surgeon and his assistant who treated Biko, Ames and a group of five academics and physicians raised funds and fought an eight-year legal battle against the medical establishment. Ames risked her personal safety and academic career in her pursuit of justice, taking the dispute to the South African Supreme Court, where she eventually won the case in 1985.
Born in Pretoria and raised in poverty in Cape Town, Ames became the first woman to receive a Doctor of Medicine degree from the University of Cape Town in 1964. Ames studied the effects of cannabis on the brain and published several articles on the subject. Seeing the therapeutic benefits of cannabis on patients in her own hospital, she became an early proponent of legalization for medicinal use. She headed the neurology department at Groote Schuur Hospital before retiring in 1985, but continued to lecture at Valkenberg and Alexandra Hospital. After apartheid was dismantled in 1994, Ames testified at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission about her work on the "Biko doctors" medical ethics inquiry. In 1999, Nelson Mandela awarded Ames the Star of South Africa, the country's highest civilian award, in recognition of her work on behalf of human rights.
Early life
Ames was born at Voortrekkerhoogte in Pretoria, South Africa, on 20 April 1920, to Frank and Georgina Ames, the second of three daughters. Her mother, who was raised in a Boer concentration camp by Ames' grandmother, a nurse in the Second Boer War, was also a nurse. Ames never knew her father, who abandoned his wife and three daughters.
With her mother unable to care for her family, Ames spent part of her childhood in a Catholic orphanage where she was stricken with typhoid fever. Her mother later rejoined the family and moved them to Cape Town, where Ames attended the Rustenburg School for Girls. She enrolled at the University of Cape Town (UCT) medical school where she received her MBChB degree in 1942.
Medical career
In Cape Town, Ames interned at Groote Schuur Hospital; she also worked in the Transkei region as a general practitioner. She earned her MD degree in 1964 from UCT, the first woman to do so. Ames became head of the neurology department at Groote Schuur Hospital in 1976. She was made an associate professor in 1978. Ames retired in 1985, but continued to work part-time at both Valkenberg and Alexandra Hospital as a lecturer in the UCT Psychiatry and Mental Health departments. In 1997, UCT made Ames an associate professor emeritus of neurology; she received an honorary doctorate in medicine from UCT in 2001. According to Pat Sidley of the British Medical Journal, Ames "was never made a full professor, and believed that this was because she was a woman."
Biko affair
South African anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko, who had formerly studied medicine at the University of Natal Medical School, was detained by Port Elizabeth security police on 18 August 1977 and held for 20 days. Sometime between 6 and 7 September, Biko was beaten and tortured into a coma. According to allegations by Ames and others, surgeon Ivor Lang, along with chief district surgeon Benjamin Tucker, collaborated with the police and covered up the abuse, leading to Biko's death from his injuries on 12 September. According to Benatar & Benatar 2012, "there were clear ethical breaches on the part of the doctors who were responsible" for Biko.
When the South African Medical and Dental Council (SAMDC) along with the support of the Medical Association of South Africa (MASA), declined to discipline the district surgeons in Biko's death, two groups of physicians filed separate formal complaints with the SAMDC regarding the lack of professionalism shown by Biko's doctors. Both cases made their way to the South African Supreme Court in an attempt to force the SAMDC to conduct a formal inquiry into the medical ethics of Lang and Tucker. One case was filed by Ames, along with Trefor Jenkins and Phillip Tobias of the University of the Witwatersrand; a second case was filed by Dumisani Mzamane, Yosuf Veriava of Coronationville Hospital, and Tim Wilson of Alexandra Health Centre.