MEC for Health, Dr Sibongiseni Dhlomo spoke of the need to strengthen the oversight role of hospital boards and clinic committees at the meeting with the chairperson of hospitals boards held at Inkosi Albert Luthuli Central Hospital in Durban. “The cycle of identifying, analysing and acting on the problems in the delivery chain requires a productive team that can work well together.”
The meeting was convened by the MEC and attended by 59 board chairpersons of the 70 established in the province. The purpose of the meeting was to strengthen relations and clarify the role of boards in the delivery of healthcare.
Speaking at the meeting the MEC said, “This meeting is important in that as a department we need, from time to time, to meet representatives of the community to hear each other's ideas. Through such a discussion, we begin to work as a team to develop a shared vision of quality health care. Together we identify and prioritise problems and constraints that make it difficult to achieve quality health services.”
During the meeting, the MEC heard suggestions and problems that are faced by various institutions. These were mainly around the long periods spent waiting for ambulances, scarce staff accommodation especially in rural hospitals and budget constraints. The MEC responded to these issues and said; “You are leaders entrusted by your communities to champion their health needs. You cannot expect the department to make the necessary changes without your active participation in defining the change, monitoring and evaluating how such change is affected.”
The MEC went further to outline the core standards for the assessment of a health facility that the department wants all hospitals to begin improving on. These include cleanliness; safety; staff attitudes; patient experience of care and access to care, among others.
“As a team we need to have a greater understanding of various viewpoints and in sculpting a collective vision of what quality in health care means for the community and some gaps in achieving that vision. But the improvement process moves beyond identifying problems to solving them. Through dialogue and analysis the group looks at the issues to determine root causes and identify solutions for achieving the desired level of quality,” the MEC said
The meeting agreed that there is a need for a continuous process where the MEC and the boards meet and share knowledge and information on how these improvements have gone. The MEC informed all present that managers owe it to the public to provide information and to engage with hospital boards on a regular basis. This, he said, is what government means when it committed to building a working partnership with the people and together to doing more, better.
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Chris Maxon
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