MediClinic Limpopo management and staff
MediClinic board members
Community members
Members of the media
Ladies and gentlemen
Good evening
Programme director, it is indeed my pleasure to be part of the grand opening of this health facility which is expected to play a vital role in a fight against illnesses and diseases.
The role of private hospitals and clinics in the country cannot be over emphasised, as currently the private hospitals contribute 26% of the bed capacity in the country.
The country is faced with what the Minister of Health, Dr Aaron Motsoaledi refer to as the quadruple burden of diseases and as a department we are doing the best we can to ensure that we provide all health related equipments.
We believe that working together with the private hospitals and clinics we will be able to win a battle against these four diseases:
- HIV and AIDS including Tuberculosis (TB).
- High incidents of maternal and child mortality.
- Increasing number of Non-Communicable Diseases including , violence and injury.
In order to address the quadruple burden of diseases, as a country we are moving from the curative health system which is expensive and unsustainable to the most desired system based on prevention, preservation and promotion of health.
Programme director, this we can only do when our hospitals and clinics are equipped adequately to deal with the challenges that we are facing in the health sector, particularly public health sector.
To ensure that our preventative system gain momentum, we have improved immunisation coverage as a significant element in the prevention of child mortality as it is associated with child survival and infant and under-five mortality rates.
Immunisation against measles has increased between 2001 and 2009, from 68,5% of children aged under one year in 2001 to 98,3% of children of the same age in 2009. There was an increase in the proportion of children under one year of age who had received all their primary vaccines for TB, diphtheria, whooping cough, tetanus, polio, measles, hepatitis B and haemophilus influenza from 2001 to 2009.
The immunisation rates for primary vaccines increased from 66,4% in 2001 to 95,3% in 2009. According to the District Health Information Systems, 97% of pregnant women utilised antenatal care during 2009, which is an indication that as a department we have demonstrated commitment to reducing maternal mortality.
This will be in line the Fifth Millennium Development Goal which requires countries to improve maternal health and reduce their Maternal Mortality Ratio by 75% by 2015.
Programme director, the issue of funding for the department is still a mayor challenge as the bulk of health sector funding comes from the national treasury. The budget of the national department of health grew by 15.3 % from 21.7 billion in 2010/11 to 25.7 billion in 2011/12.
Although the state contributes about 40% of all expenditure on health, the public health sector is under pressure to deliver services to about 80% of the population.
Despite this, most resources are concentrated in the private health sector, which sees to the health needs of the remaining 20% of the population.
This will paves a way for the private doctors to collaborate with doctors from the public sector. The collaboration will ensure that the private sector plough back to the communities it serves.
The private hospitals complement the public hospitals and will remain a crucial partner to government even during the implementation of the National Health Insurance (NHI).
In his presentation to Parliament on the National Health Insurance Minister of Health Dr Aaron Motsoaledi said: “NHI is not intended to destroy the private sector. It will actually make the sector more sustainable by making it levy reasonable fees. The intention of NHI is rather to make sure that citizens are able to utilise both the public and private sectors in such a way that they complement each other rather than one undermining the other. National Health Insurance is trying to blend the two in a more sustainable manner that benefits the population.”
Motsoaledi added that NHI is not a war between the public and the private healthcare sectors, it is not even a competition or a beauty contest between these two healthcare delivery systems.
As a department we want to congratulate MediClinic Limpopo for upgrading their facilities and believe that it will assist us in a fight against diseases and illnesses. We believe that working together we can do more to provide quality healthcare to all our citizens.
I thank you
