More than three million people have shown confidence in Gauteng’s Primary Health Care (PHC) facilities in the last quarter of the current financial year.
This was revealed in the first quarter monitoring report presented by the department at the health portfolio committee meeting today.This meeting assists with facilitating effective performance monitoring, evaluation and corrective action.
In the first quarter (April, May, June 2012), 3 909 855 patients under the age of five were treated at PHC facilities and the department aims for an increase before the end of this financial year to five million for patients under the age of five and one million to those over the age of five.
Gauteng Department of Health MEC Hope Papo says, “We are happy that people are now responding to our call of seeking medical assistance at clinics and only go to hospital on referral. We however urged more people to use the appropriate levels of care to avoid inconveniences such as long queues.”
The department is however experiencing challenges with antenatal visits before 20 weeks gestation. Performance was slightly lower (33%).This may be due to women still believing that antenatal attendance is only necessary when the stomach is showing.
“We are making a call for more pregnant mothers to come in first 20 weeks as that will assist them to identify pregnancy related complications and ensure that they give birth to healthy children,” says MEC.
Immunisation is important to eliminate vaccine preventable illnesses such as pneumonia, diarrhea and measles among children. And parents must understand that they have an obligation to ensure that their children have received all the necessary immunisation.
The child immunisation coverage maintained above the 90% target.About 103.1% children under one year were immunised.Measles first dose was given to 112% of children under one year, 107% were given Pneumococcal (PCV) 3rd dose; and 107% were given Rota Virus (RV) 2nd dose.
To ensure a decrease in maternal and neonatal deaths, the department is continuing with social mobilisation which includes door-to-door campaigns targeting the underperforming districts.
Other achievements include:
- An increase in the provision of dental sealants to learners from 13 125 in the last quarter to 14 446 in the current quarter.In the last quarter, 1 375 dentures were delivered to pensioners and between April and June this year, this number increased to 2 565.Currently 91 880 school learners are on tooth brushing programmes.
- Currently, there are 585 825 adults and 36,529 children on the anti-retroviral treatment.The HIV Counselling and Testing rate stands at 92%.
- During the first quarter, 1802 Professional, Enrolled Nurses and Enrolled Nursing Auxiliaries and 588 Post Basic Nurses graduated.In quarter 1 the Nursing Colleges had a total of 6532 Student Nurses in various categories in all years of training.
- The department has also reduced accruals from R 3.6 billion to R120 million by July 2012.Payment amounting to R 874 million made to Medical Supplies Depot by April 2012.The total paid from 1 April to 28 June 2012 of R4.2 billion includes current and prior year invoices
Enquiries:
Simon Zwane
Cell: 082 551 9892
