Programme Director
Marikana Ward Councilor Appearance Ndlovu
MMC for Community Service, MMC Marekwa-Kodongo
Executive Manager for Bojanala District Health Services, Ms Mmule Rakau
Let me acknowledge from Lonmin - Esteemed Managers, Mr Abey Kgotle, Mr Barnard Mokwena and Ms Natascha Viljoen
Rustenburg Sub-district Manager, Mr Lawrence Tlhowe
Other Local Area Managers present
Officials of the Department
Distinguished guests
Ladies and gentlemen
Dumelang Bagaetsho
It is only a few weeks back that I was in a corporate social investment occasion organised by Lonmin when some of our outstanding learners were offered bursaries to further their studies. Now we meet again here in Marikana, what I can call a mining community because around this location is a lot of mining activities going on. I must say I am really excited because Lonmin has adopted a good habit of corporate social investment.
So, this is yet another milestone. We are here to offer hope to the people of Marikana, so that they may begin to believe that the end is near for the health challenges they have experienced over the years.
As government and the Department of Health in particular, we have a mandate to provide quality health care services for our people. We need to work extremely had to make sure that our people, majority of who have been previously disadvantaged have increased access to health care services. I am talking about a Constitutional right to health care and a basic human right that is one of the pillars of the Human Rights Charter.
We have come from far as a country but we are moving forward with a sense of hope that tomorrow will be better than yesterday. We come from a very uneven health system that leaned towards benefiting only those with money in their pockets while the poor had very little access to health services, and where there was access, it was access to poor health services. One of the biggest challenges in transforming the health care system is that, in terms of the poor, we talking about a majority.
Since coming to power in 1994, the African National Congress (ANC) has implemented a number of measures to combat health inequalities in South Africa. These have included the introduction of free health care in 1994 for all children under the age of six together with pregnant and breastfeeding women making use of public sector health facilities (extended to all those using primary level public sector health care services in 1996) and the extension of free hospital care (in 2003) to children older than six with moderate and severe disabilities.
We have always emphasised that the ideals of the Freedom Charter can never be attained by the ANC led government alone. In all our endeavors, we have always called for multi sectoral partnerships. With multi sectoral partnerships we envisaged an approach to service delivery that is collaborative by bringing together the private sector, government, Non-Governmental Organisations, Faith Based Organisations, labour, tribal authorities and all civil society formations for a common purpose of improving the conditions of our communities.
We talked about “better life for all” South Africans and this ideal was never going to materialise unless we come together to make multi sectoral collaboration a reality.
We went further to make partnerships one of the critical and priority areas in Government’s Ten Point Plan. One of the key priorities under the Ten Point Plan is therefore the Provision of Strategic Leadership and Creation of a Social Compact for Better Health Outcomes which is aimed at ensuring that there is unified action across the health sector and that there is appropriate planning involving all health stakeholders, our communities, governance structures, the private sector and leaders in the health sector.
To see the mining sector coming out to want to develop our communities is really pleasing to me and it is an indication that you understand our strategic intention when we call for social compact and partnerships. We are beginning to witness immense participation of all relevant stakeholders within the broader Public Private Partnership ideal and today is testimony to the progress we are making.
I truly believe our successes in the Mass Campaign for HIV Counseling and Testing (HCT) is a good example of what multi sectoral partnerships can do. We worked together and got majority of our people tested for HIV so that they may be informed of their status and take appropriate action.
As the North West Province, we have huge infrastructure backlog and we need the private sector and in particular the mining sector to be on board and invest in development of health infrastructure in the Province. By so doing, we will be investing in the health of our nation and a healthy nation is a productive nation.
Government is concentrating on improving health conditions in the rural areas within the broader programmes of Primary Health Care (PHC) Re-engineering and Rural Development. It means we need to see more of our rural facilities in good state and that takes refurbishment of old ones and building new ones where we feel the older ones needs to be demolished. So, once again, thank you Lonmin for partnering with us as we seek to development our communities.
Since I joined the Department of Health, I took the initiative to visit all our health facilities in the North West Province, prioritising rural facilities. On my first visits, I was immediately confronted by a state of despair when I witnessed for myself some of our clinics which were dilapidated. I then realised why we have been struggling to keep the poor nurses in rural areas and one of the reasons is that the conditions in which they work are not bearable.
We moved swiftly to address this challenge by renovating a lot of these clinics and we identified others that we may have to rebuild. We cannot do this alone. It is a tall order and we need partners.
Let us continue to work together to improve the health profile of our nation. We have the goal for a long and healthy life for all South Africans.
Working together we can do more!
I thank you!
