Programme director
Acting Head of Department, Mr Vuyo Mbulawa
Executive Managers of the Department present here tonight
All the Doctors present
Employees of the department
Our guests
Ladies and gentlemen
Allow me to start by wishing you a wonderful Valentine evening and thank you for honouring the invitation to come and share this important session with us. Talking about Valentine, it is equally important to note that this week is set aside to educate our communities, men and women, boys and girls and lovers all over about the dangers of sexually transmitted diseases, the importance of prevention and proper condom use. I urge all of you as doctors to share responsibility of passing on health messages to children thereby entrench moral values within our families and society. With your assistance we can be sure that our prevention campaigns and health promotion messages around sexually transmitted infections will reach all corners of our province. This year, it is important that you as doctors assist us to also urge parents to share responsibility of spreading the prevention messages. It remains a challenge for the department never to stop spreading the message about the dangers of sexually transmitted infections and the importance of proper condom use.
The challenge is that our target group which is young and sexually active people of between 18 and 24 years of age is a target group in transit. This target group is in transit to adulthood and a new breed of ignorant and innocent boys and girls enters this target group stage every year. They immediately become vulnerable to the dangers of STIs and that is why health education and the spread of health promotion messages must never stop. So parents’ role is critical for this reason.
Esteemed doctors,
I also called you here this evening to come together and share a vision of quality primary health care for all, which we are striving for it to be informed by and to be responsive to the needs of our people. We must not only leave the responsibility of primary health care to our poor nurses who work hard and sometimes in trying conditions. Strengthening primary health care is a responsibility of all of us. Yes we need doctors at the hospital level and in our tertiary institutions but doctors’ support to primary health care is equally critical if we are to effectively strengthen this level of health care.
The African National Congress (ANC) led government has prioritised rural development.As the health sector our contribution to rural development is to provide the best possible quality health care services, to develop health infrastructure and to make sure there is adequate health resources in rural areas. It means there must be adequate supply of medication, it means facilities must resemble a place of healing and it certainly means that doctors’ turnover in rural areas must be adequate.
The objective of rural development is also shared in the vision of the National Health Insurance (NHI) which seeks to provide access to quality health care services to all our people especially the poor and marginalised. It is therefore important that doctors understand NHI in this context and nothing else. NHI will not close your surgeries.It only seeks for us to work together and share the little resources we have in this country. The National General Council (NGC) of the ANC took a resolution on its meeting last year that we will begin to see a phased-in implementation of the NHI by 2012. It is therefore also important that as partners, we begin to prepare ourselves for this landmark health in policy reform which is geared to improve the health status of our nation. President Jacob Zuma has said in the State of the Nation Address that Government will soon be releasing the policy document for public engagement.
As we begin to prepare for the introduction of the NHI we should also be conscious of the fact that we have Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) which are our responsibility to fulfil. As the health sector and the broader social cluster, we have before us MDGs of fighting diseases like HIV, Tuberculosis and tackling issues of women’s health like reducing infant and maternal mortality rate.
During my term as the MEC for Health in the North West, I need you to assist me to improve the attitudes of our nurses towards their work and towards our patients. Equally a sound doctor, nurse and patient relationship will drastically improve our approach to curing of diseases and general health awareness.
Another key element in this equation is that of cleanliness of our facilities. We cannot talk about quality health care services without cleanliness. We have started with a process to introduce the cleanest health facility competition. As doctors and if you really value the profession, you cannot be pleased to provide health care in a clinic or hospital that does not prioritise cleanliness. So I am also lobbying you as doctors to support the cleanliness campaign and to urge our facilities to be clean at all times.
I am therefore urging you to work with us and to build a strong partnership for the common goal of ensuring access to quality health care by all our people regardless of where they live.
I don't pretend to have all the answers. I depend on you as partners to advice me, to share your experiences and best practices going forward.
I thank you!
Enquiries:
Ngwako Motsieng
Tel: 018 387 5830
Cell: 082 964 8838/082 097 4970
f2e-mail: 086 634 2993
Fax: 018 387 5794
E-mail: nmotsieng@nwpg.gov.za/ nmotsieng@gmail.com
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