Programme director
Honourable Deputy Minister of Health (Forwarded apology; she is in Durban delivering a keynote address in the International HIV and AIDS Conference will join us tomorrow)
Ministers from other Countries
Members of the Provincial Executive Council (MECs)
Mr Clive Smith and the board of Mobile Health Alliance
Mr Gavin Krugel and the board of GMSA
Representatives from World Health Organisation
Representatives from the Medical Research Council
Representatives from Health Professions Council of South Africa
Representatives of the Private Sector and Business at large,
Ladies and gentlemen
Esteemed guests
I am greatly honoured to address you on this momentous occasion for South Africa and the African continent as a whole; the inaugural summit on Mobile Health.
I would like to acknowledge and thank the South African government for allowing participation to this summit and the private sector for organising a summit of this magnitude. Special thanks go to the Global Society Mobile Health and Mobile Health Alliance for choosing South Africa to be the venue of the summit and the next three summits.
As you are all aware, there are numerous challenges facing the developing countries in relation to the delivery of health care services to their people. I hope this summit will come up with practical solutions relevant to the developing countries on how Mobile Health can help improve health care delivery.
In the past, a nation's wealth was largely a function of its endowment of natural resources, its labour force and its accumulated capital base. The 'new' wealth of nations places increasing emphasis on knowledge in its various embodied forms.
Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) permit information and knowledge to expand in quantity and accessibility, thus ICTs have enormous potential especially for developing countries in furthering sustainable development.
Although South Africa is much more developed and its ICT infrastructure far more advanced compared to most Sub-Saharan African countries, similar difficulties as in other African countries do exist, especially with respect to ICT infrastructure in rural parts of the country.
It is for this reason that in the formulation of the Information Society and Development Plan, the South African government recognised the value of Information and Communications Technologies as essential tools for development and to improve the lives of our people in rural areas.
The Department of Communications ICT strategy advocates digital inclusion of special groups such as Women, Children, Youth and People with Disabilities to ensure that there is access to basic services through ICTs among South Africans, with special emphasis on Rural Development.
Mobile Health can indeed play a significant role as part of eHealth initiatives in realising this strategy.
That plan should be rooted in the country’s Negotiated Service Delivery Agreement (NSDA) which provides us all with opportunities to work together in order to make a real contribution towards “A long and health life for all South Africans”.
The NSDA is the country’s response to address the quadruple burden of HIV, AIDS and TB, child and maternal deaths, non-communicable diseases and violence and injuries. A wide scale application of innovative technologies must be able to demonstrate measurable and tangible results to the following NSDA outputs.
1. Increasing life expectancy
2. Decreasing maternal and child mortality
3. Combating HIV and AIDS and decreasing the burden of diseases from Tuberculosis and
4. Strengthening Health system effectiveness.
The Department of Health is in a process of finalising the draft eHealth Strategy and revising the country’s Telemedicine Strategy and Mobile Health (mHealth) will find its expression with these strategies.
The advent of mobile technology and the high mobile phone penetration in the country are amongst the key proponents for Mobile Health in South Africa.
Mobile Health in South Africa should not be seen in isolation but should be viewed within the context of eHealth applications.
South Africa fully embraces the potential for Information and Communications for health care service delivery hence e-Health is one of the priority areas within the country's implementation of the Information Society and Development Plan.
ICT infrastructure is a critical component for e-Health development including mHealth. Foreign investment in African telecommunications infrastructure is steadily increasing, and this is hoped to drive the development of Mobile Health solutions.
According to Johan Smith, director of the Africa Telecommunications Group, KPMG SA, many countries such as South Africa, Ghana and Pakistan are benefiting from m-health solutions. “There is growing recognition that Africa is an investment destination. This is enabled by regulatory reforms to encourage development of the telecoms sector,” he adds.
There are a number of hurdles that South Africa has to go through before Mobile Health becomes part of the mainstream health care service delivery. Paramount to these is the question of affordability, which is very critical for adoption of this emerging technology.
Whilst there are global reports such as Mobile Health Market Report 2010 to 2015, which show that Mobile Health has the potential to reduce costs, associated with one of the most expensive aspects of our health care system; chronic disease care, such claims have not been confirmed locally.
Industry must produce empirical evidence that shows that South Africa can indeed sustain the use of this technology for day-to-day health care service.
Mobile Health should fully comply with the provisions of the National Health Act No. 61 of 2003, in as far as privacy and confidentiality are concerned.
Lastly, Mobile Health should align and adhere to Health Professions Council of South Africa's ethical rules, regulations and policy guidelines.
While literature claims an enormous potential for Mobile Health solutions globally, there remains several barriers which include regulatory issues and adoption by mainstream healthcare providers.
Adoption of Mobile Health by clinicians and other health care providers in South Africa is vital for positioning Mobile Health within the broader South African health care system.
Our role as government and specifically is to create a conducive environment for growth of mobile technologies in South Africa so that they can make a meaningful contribution especially to the key priority areas of government such as health, education and job creation.
We can only do this by ensuring that we develop ICT policies and legislation that create this growth in mobile technologies. The South African government through the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa continues to develop relevant legislation and regulations within the mobile technology arena such as those related to radio frequency spectrum as well as licensing for mobile operators.
The South African government appreciates the importance of partnerships with the private sector in the delivery of government projects and has developed appropriate legislation to govern such partnerships.
As government, we will continue to strive to reduce the digital divide and improve access to ICT for all our people in South Africa by making meaningful investments towards the necessary resources such as human capital, technical expertise and broadband network infrastructure.
In concluding, the market in which mHealth operates should know and be aware of where South Africa is and what we as government needs.
In this way, the decisions taken at this summit must be taken forward and even find their way in the highest bodies like the World Health Organisation and the United Nations.
We expect Mobile Health to live beyond pilot projects; to the main stream delivery of the needed health care services in South Africa, Africa as a whole and other developing countries.
I wish you fruitful deliberation during the course of the summit whose outcomes will revolutionise the delivery of health care services to our people.
I thank you.
Source: Department of Communications
