9 November 2006
The Quality Month event dubbed "Restoring Dignity through Quality
Healthcare" coincides with the Public Service Week. Over the past months the
issue of quality healthcare services has been making headlines with special
focus on services and the state of our hospitals throughout the country. The
national Department of Health has declared November as Quality Month, with the
objective of affording health workers a chance to weigh up and improve the
quality of services rendered.
In response to these challenges, the North West Health MEC Nomonde Rasmeni
has been conducting unannounced visits to some of our hospitals in the province
with the sole purpose of assessing quality of service and understanding areas
were we need to improve. "Our objective is to render decent and quality
healthcare services and any deviation from that course will not be tolerated.
Our people have a right to demand top quality healthcare services from the
state as espoused in the freedom charter," said MEC Rasmeni.
The objective of the summit is to highlight quality in healthcare delivery
with special emphasis on clinical quality, thus areas to be discussed
includes:
* to highlight critical organisational issues important to quality in health
care i.e. Healthcare Technology Management, Occupational Health Safety and
Records Management
* to cover the experiences in monitoring quality in health programmes,
Prevention from Mother-to-Child Transmission (PMTCT), tuberculosis (TB), HIV
and AIDS
* to launch the department's Patient Safety Strategy
* to analyse the achievements of the Hospital Accreditation Programme.
"In the province we have the Clinical Investigation Committee that we use as
a barometer for measuring the level of quality health services rendered and we
believe such structures will also guide the summit on systems and structures
for quality assurance. Apart from outstanding efforts made by our health
workers to improve service delivery, we are still concerned by the increasing
cases of negligence and bad treatment of our patients by our health workers. We
are upbeat that this summit will go a long way in assisting us to eradicate
this practice once and for all," concluded MEC Nomonde Rasmeni
Members of the media are invited to the summit and join us as we explore
improvements in rendering healthcare services.
Enquiries:
Zakes Molala
Acting Departmental Spokesperson
Tel: (018) 387 5830
Fax: (018) 387 5830
E-mail: lmolala@nwpg.gov.za
Issued by: Department of Health, North West Provincial Government
9 November 2006
Source: North West Provincial Government (http://www:.nwhealth.gov.za)
