Ladies and gentlemen,
I will outline progress that has been made since the beginning of the current term of office with regard to ensuring that the health status of the people of Gauteng is improved and poverty is reduced through our social development interventions.
As you are aware the two departments were merged when we reconfigured government in May 2009. In the first section I will focus on our interventions with regard to War on Poverty and targeting vulnerable groups.
A total of 3 000 households in Ratanda, Sedibeng have been profiled with a view of determining their indigence status. This database will be shared with local municipalities for inclusion in their indigent register, and possibly South African Social Security Agency (SASSA) as well as linking them to existing poverty alleviation programmes. A basket of services which include social grants, free healthcare, food security, free scholar transport and indigent burial, have been implemented in 2 000 of the profiled households.
Similar profiling is underway in local municipalities such as Westonaria, Merafong, Emfuleni, Randfontein and Mogale City. The focus on these district municipalities is aimed at ensuring that even those of our people who reside in district municipalities benefit from our poverty alleviation interventions. It is planned that a total of 10 000 households will be reached through this profiling.
Services for children remain our priority. Since the beginning of the new term of office we have already registered (for funding) 155 early childhood development centres (ECDs) benefiting 6 494 children. This is in addition to 520 ECDs that we are funding. In addition a further 152 previously unregistered home based ECDs have been registered. This speaks to our commitment to register 1 500 unregistered home based ECDs by the end of the financial year. We have completed three early childhood development facilities in Soshanguve, Garankuwa and Refilwe.
We provide services to 62 945 children that have been placed in foster care. In the current financial year we have placed 1 939 new children in foster care, thus ensuring that they live in families and communities instead of being institutionalised.
Protecting the rights of older persons and providing services to them remains key and in this regard we have expanded services and care geared to older persons in areas where there were previously no such services. The Department provided funding to 48 services centres which provided services to 8 687 older persons. To this end the department is constructing a new old age home in Mohlakeng on the West Rand.
As part of efforts to increase access to service in disadvantaged communities a proto type multipurpose centre comprising an ECD centre, day care centre for older persons and a drop in centre for orphaned and vulnerable children was launched in Ratanda last month.
Health services:
Some of you will recall that on 25 June 2009, I launched Operation Kuyasheshwa-La, in order to stabilise delivery of health services at our hospitals and clinics. In line with our commitments, we have already appointed full time managers at all districts. As part of our efforts to extend access to primary health care, we have extended hours of operation at two clinics at Mogale City, two clinics at Randfontein and two clinics at Westonaria.
We have drastically reduced drugs stock out at hospitals and clinics. We have moved from 90 to 95 percent drug stock in all our hospitals and clinics. We have already begun phasing out usage of nursing agencies in order to ensure that government becomes the direct employer of nurses who provide care at our hospitals and clinics. Since the beginning of April this year, we have employed 1 178 nurses of different categories. This has gone a long way towards relieving work load from our overstretched health professionals.
In order to attract more pharmacists, an agreement has been reached at the bargaining council to increase the salaries of the pharmacists and pharmacy assistants.
An agreement has been reached with the South African Medical Association and private sector doctors on how to get more doctors at community health care centres (CHC) and clinics. This will ensure that patients do not by-pass the referral system because they believe in being by a doctor when coming to a health facility.
Meetings have been held with the three metropolitan municipalities in the province regarding the assignment of primary healthcare service delivery in the metropolitan municipalities. According to the assignment metropolitan municipalities council areas will be divided into smaller clusters that will be easy to manage. Each cluster will have a strong management team and a comprehensive package of services will be available across the province irrespective of whether the clinic is managed by a municipality or the provincial department.
In line with our budget speech commitments, we have reviewed and terminated contracts with consultancies in order to ensure that funds are moved to core services. We estimates that through this exercise the department is likely to save approximately R500 million.
With regards to equipments for hospitals R168 million has been set aside for equipment at Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital while R80 million will be spent on purchasing equipment for the new Mamelodi Hospital.
As part saving costs the department will stop the usage of private ambulances. Already we have taken delivery of 115 ambulances, 15 rapid response vehicles, six planned patient transport vehicles and six disaster buses. This will go a long way in improving our medical emergency response times.
A provincial Imbizo for nurses and retired nurses was held and attended by over 1 000 nurses on Saturday, 29 August 2009 in Boksburg. At this Imbizo nurses recommitted themselves to improving their professional image and improving the standard of care at hospitals and clinics. In turn the department committed itself to subsidising nurses with appropriate uniforms.
As I speak, 205 414 people are on antiretroviral treatment. This is an increase from 185 126 as at the end of the previous financial year.
Enquiries:
Mandla Sidu
Cell: 082 773 9013
Issued by: Gauteng Provincial Government
7 September 2009
