CEO Indaba
10 July 2006
Programme Director,
The acting HOD, Dr Abul Rahman,
Senior managers,
Hospital managers,
Ladies and gentlemen
We are meeting this morning to mark an important milestone in our drive to
build a people centred and patient centred quality health system in our
province.
When I presented the Departmentâs budget to the legislature last month I
made a couple of commitments. Among others I said the over riding principle I
want to establish in the Department is that the needs of the public, our
patients and out clients, must come first.
I also expressed a view that our hospitals will only be able to render
services expected by our people if they are managed by competent and
responsible men and women. I made a commitment that the powers delegated to
CEOs will be reviewed in order to empower and enable them to manage hospitals
effectively and efficiently.
Today we are meeting to see a fulfilment of those commitments and promises.
This means that from today we are decentralising powers to hospital managers
over human resources, finance, labour relations and other management functions.
The role of the Department of Health will now shift from an executive or
administrative management role to a more supportive role, setting guidelines
and provincial policy. Our hospital boards will assist this process by
vigorously exercising their oversight function in the different hospitals.
What we expect and what the community should expect is that it will no
longer be business as usual. With this decentralisation, hospital management
have been given flexibility to spend their allocated budgets to achieve the
required outputs.
This means that reports of medical shortages in some hospitals, lack of
cleanliness and lack of discipline will no longer be tolerated. With the powers
that you now have long periods taken to finalise disciplinary cases will have
to come to an end.
While decentralisation increases autonomy and the decision-making powers of
hospital managers, it also requires clearer lines of accountability to the
authorities who fund the hospitals and the communities served by the hospitals.
In developing an efficient and accountable hospital management, our overall
goal is to promote innovation and accountability to clients and the
Department.
Your mandate as CEOs of our hospitals is to restore and uphold the dignity
and respect of people who use our public health facilities. You can achieve
this by rigorously driving quality assurance and improvement strategies in
accordance with the National Health Act. You have to adopt a humane approach
and culture of caring that should characterise our hospitals.
You should manage resources at your disposal skilfully and competently to
achieve these goals. You should be accountable and responsive to the needs of
the communities you serve.
We should use the opportunity presented by the delegation of more powers to
achieve a paradigm shift in the management of public hospitals. We have to
focus on improving the quality of work environment for all our employees. In my
visits to our hospitals and clinics I have been astounded by the fact that
there are no facilities for staff to sit down and rest with a cup of coffee or
tea during breaks. This intervention is necessary if we are serious about
employee satisfaction.
When you improve the working conditions of you staff when you make them feel
that they are valued, they are most likely to reflect the same attitude in the
manner they relate to our clients and our patients.
This initiative is therefore a major step in our efforts to achieve our
vision of an accessible, caring and high quality health system.
I thank you!
Issued by: Department of Health, Gauteng Provincial Government
10 July 2006
