The North West Department of Health will this financial year officially launch Primary Healthcare Re-engineering to substantially improve waiting times and reduce work load at secondary level of care. We also want to integrate mental health into the chronic model as part of this programme, MEC Dr. Magome Masike said.
“PHC re-engineering is also about improving the quality of care. We want to focus on this by implementing the six key Ministerial priority areas which include Cleanliness of the facilities; Patient safety; Infection control; Waiting times; Medical Supplies as well as Value and attitude of staff to patients. We will also improve in this area by implementing the National Core Standards and Norms. We will be focusing on reviving school health service, integration of chronic models and outreach teams to homes of patients” said the MEC.
The Department will continue to strengthen in-sourcing of medical supplies by finalising registration of the Medical Depot and allocation of resources. The staff at the depot will continue to be trained on drug supply management, he said during the delivery of his Departmental budget speech with a budget of R6.9 billion for 2012/13 financial year.
Masike said his department will pay extra attention to Emergency Medical Rescue Services (EMRS) with special emphasis placed on response time.
“The Department will have to aggressively respond to the plight of our communities and we must improve the response time for this to happen. We therefore have plans to establish and fund EMRS satellite stations in the districts. We are on course to Reengineer Emergency Medical Services (by training, discipline, access and communication) to improve the response times of ambulances to all communities to be in line with national targets. We will also endeavour to improve on planned patient transport which will allow ambulances to concentrate on their core business of emergency care” he said.
Enquiries:
Tebogo Lekgethwane
Cell: 082 929 9958
E-mail: Tlekgethwane@nwpg.gov.za
North West to invest energies in primary health care re-engineering
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