14 February 2006
In his opening of the legislature address, the Premier outlined progress
made in implementing the government programme last year and detailed the
priorities for this year.
This briefing is intended to provide a progress report on the activities of
the health department as outlined in last year's State of the Province Address
and an outline of the priorities for this year.
The Constitution and Bill of Rights
This year, as we celebrate 10 years of the adoption of a democratic
Constitution and the Bill of Rights, we are confident that we have made good
progress towards the realisation of the ideals contained in these documents -
specifically relating to the right to basic health care, the right to emergency
services and a mandate to administer an efficient, effective and caring health
system.
This year is a year of focus on human resources for health. Working together
with unions, professional associations and other strategic partners we will
launch a campaign around the Pledge of Service and also recognition of the
important role health workers play in improving the health and lives of our
people. Today, together with DENOSA we will be starting a programme called
Caring for the Carers.
We are working hard to improve the working conditions for health
professionals in order to retain and attract them back into the public health
sector. Last year we embarked on an aggressive campaign to recruit health
professionals and we placed a block advertisement calling for applications for
1 500 posts. By the end of January this year 1991 health professionals were
appointed consisting of 1 113 medical professionals, 357 nursing professionals
and 521 allied health professionals. We are on course to reach the target of
2300 professionals by the end of the financial year.
Last month we held a consultative forum with hospital CEOs to discuss the
management of hospitals in the province. We have looked at the delegation of
powers to hospital managers and in the coming financial year (2006/07) all CEOs
will sign new performance contracts.
The number of people accessing primary health care facilities have continued
to grow and between 2003 and the end of the 2004/05 financial year, this number
had increased from 10.4 million to 13 million.
We will continue to strengthen access to these facilities by extending
operating hours of clinics in 80% of 25 sub-districts in the province. We have
set aside additional money to assist district council areas to strengthen
Primary Healthcare in the 2006/07 financial year. The Premier made an
undertaking that we will complete ten new clinics by the end of April 2007.
I am pleased to announce that the construction of the Soshanguve Block L
clinic has been completed and will be opened next week Monday, 20 February. The
clinic will be named after honourable Commissioner Maria Rantho, a human rights
activist who was wheelchair bound but had boundless passion for improving the
lives of her people. The construction of the final phase of Stanza Bopape
community health centre in Mamelodi and Stretford community health centre in
Orange Farm have also been completed.
In 2004 we introduced community health workers to take primary healthcare
into the communities and to assist volunteers to receive a stipend of a R1000
monthly. Our aim is to have 3000 community health workers trained by 2007. So
far close to 2000 community health workers have already been trained. In the
coming financial year, we will train a further 1000 to reach our target by
March 2007. This training programme is accredited by the South African
Qualifications Authority at NQ level four and it provides an opportunity for
young people to use it as a stepping stone for skills development whilst
serving their communities.
Through the help of these workers we have been able to reach close to 40 000
TB patients on directly observed treatment and more than 410 000 home care
visits have been made.
We aim to reduce the overall time our patients wait for services in
hospitals and clinics as well as to assist them to easily find their way
especially in large hospitals. We will be introducing courtesy managers to
improve the quality of frontline services and ensure that patients are assisted
from arrival in specific areas including outpatients, casualty, and pharmacy.
An electronic patient management system will be expanded to cover all hospitals
and clinics.
The Premier said we will be building three hospitals - in Kathorus, Mamelodi
and Zola - as part of our hospital revitalisation programme. The construction
of the new Mamelodi hospital has already begun and is expected to be completed
in 2007. The site for the construction of a new hospital in Kathorus, to
replace Natalspruit hospital, has been identified. Construction is expected to
start this year and continue for 36 months. The construction of the new Zola
hospital will also start this year and is expected to take
24 months to completion.
This year we will be officially opening the new Pretoria Academic
Hospital.
The hospital's old premises will be converted into a district hospital catering
for patients with fewer complications.
To protect patients and to provide them with recourse in cases of
unsatisfactory treatment we have introduced a 24-hour patient line. The number
is 0800 203 886.
What I have outlined for you is a reflection of what we have done and what
we are prepared to do to give concrete expression to the constitutional
provisions on health and the Bill of Rights.
30 Years of Youth
To give expression to the aspirations that the youth of 1976 fought for we
have established youth friendly services in our clinics to improve the health
of our young people. So far 52 such services have been established and they
focus on peer education in four targeted teenage health problems namely teenage
pregnancy, teenage suicide, drug and substance abuse.
We have also started learnerships and internships to provide new graduates
with the necessary training and experience required in the labour market. By
end of March 2007, 5 100 young people will have benefited from this programme
which includes auxiliary nursing, diagnostic radiography, pharmacy assistant,
basic customer care service, office management, public finance and human
resources management.
50 Years of Women's Struggle
We have also been vigorous in implementing policies to ensure employment
equity and gender equality. When we celebrate 50 years of women's struggle we
will be seeking to reach 30% of women representation in senior clinical and
management positions in March 2007.
The province's broad based black economic empowerment strategy, which seeks
to ensure that 70% of government procurement goes to Broad Based Black Economic
Empowerment (BBBEE) companies, will also benefit women because it seeks to
address employment equity and skills development targets.
On Sunday we launched Reproductive Health Month in Ratanda, Heidelberg in
our ongoing efforts to educate our people about sexually transmitted
infections, to raise awareness about pregnancy related complications as well as
prostate and cervical cancer.
We have over the years noted a decline in sexually transmitted
infections.
For example, syphilis prevalence in the province has declined from the 9.6% in
year 2000 to 0.9% in 2004.
As part of reproductive health month, we will be officially opening a
maternity and obstetrics unit as well as a Kangaroo Mother Care Unit at Far
East Rand hospital. Mother and child health remain priority programmes for the
department. We have introduced an obstetrics ambulance in Sedibeng and we will
be expanding this service to other districts this year.
To assist in dealing with the trauma of sexual assault we have trained 20
nurses and 13 doctors in medical forensic examination last year. This will
ensure that survivors are treated properly when they come to our facilities and
evidence is gathered properly to ensure a successful prosecution.
The department's efforts to improve child health have been recognised by the
World Health Organisation and the United Nations Children Fund which have
granted baby friendly hospital initiative awards to some of our
facilities.
We aim to increase the number of facilities with this status by another eight
this year.
We have identified 20 townships where we will have to consolidate and
strengthen our services in the coming year. In addition we will have to ensure
that we make services available at Cosmo City, which is still being developed,
and improve services in Alexandra Township.
TB, HIV and AIDS
Tuberculosis (TB) remains a challenge facing our country and we will
continue to pay close attention to this disease. Last year we opened a TB
centre, in collaboration with Aventis, to train community health workers on
directly observed treatment. We hope that this helps us in improving the new
positive TB cure rate to 70%.
Interventions to be made this year include the taking over of treatment of
TB from non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and integrating it into district
hospitals across the province.
The department will directly manage the 820 TB beds currently managed by
SANTA. A TB and HIV collaborative programme will be implemented in all
sub-districts and we will train 1000 health workers on comprehensive HIV and TB
clinical management and care.
The Premier spoke at length about our HIV and AIDS comprehensive care and
treatment programme including antiretroviral therapy. We will ensure that 60
000 people are on treatment by March 2007 and 54 sites are operational.
Prevention remains the only way to stop the spread of HIV in our
communities. This year we will increase the number of sites where female
condoms are available. The distribution of these condoms will increase
from
15 000 to 25 000 per month by the end of the financial year.
We will continue to visit communities to hold discussions with them and
stakeholders about their experience of health care delivery. Last year we made
21 visits to sub-districts for discussions and for health promotion events.
I would like to stop here and hope to elaborate on some of the issues in the
question and answer session.
Thank you.
Issued by: Gauteng Provincial Government
14 February 2006
