Premier, Edna Molewa
13 February 2009
Mafikeng â North West Premier, Edna Molewa, is satisfied with the province's
quest to build a healthy nation. Molewa was commenting on the initiatives the
province has taken to bring health services closer to the people of North
West.
The Premier was speaking today during the State of the Province Address in
the Provincial Legislature.
"We have built 38 new clinics since 2004, and the Itsoseng Community Health
Centre has been completed."
"We await funding for the upgrading of the Lichtenburg and Bophelong
Hospitals, while the new Vryburg and Moses Kotane Hospitals should be completed
by the end of this calendar year."
Molewa says Moses Kotane is expected to play a crucial role in Bojanala
District during the FIFA Confederations Cup in June and FIFA 2010 World Cup to
be staged in South Africa.
She emphasised that the province was committed to ensuring equitable health
care for people of North West in rural areas through the implementation of the
Primary Health Care (PHC) approach in each sub-district of the province.
"Our programme for the training of nurses in primary health care will ensure
that patients attending our health care points in areas where doctors are not
available receive appropriate assessment and treatment. In addition, we are
improving our patient referral system and realigning it to the infrastructure
programme in order to realise our goal of improving access to health services
for all as per our undertaking in the Manifesto of the ruling party. The
implementation of the Triage system will ensure that the long queues seen at
our hospitals become a thing of the past," she said.
Molewa says the province has successfully implemented the occupation
specific dispensation (OSD) for nurses as part of the province's strategy to
retain health professionals. She further said that the province would continue
to implement the same programme for the other remaining categories of the
health professionals in the next two financial years.
"We are confident that the successful implementation of such initiatives,
coupled with the improvement of health technology in hospitals and the
provision of accommodation for health professionals, will result in the
increase of health professionals in the public sector," she said.
She also praised the co-operation the province had with countries such as
Tunisia, the Republic of Cuba and Iran for improving the rate at which the
province was able to improve patient-doctor contact at the lowest level of
health care.
Molewa said the fight against HIV and AIDS and other communicable diseases
proved to be successful.
"The drop in HIV infection rates of women attending antenatal clinics, from
31,8 percent in 2005 to 29,0 percent in 2006, confirms this. Our programmes to
encourage testing and eliminate stigmatisation, together with an increased
uptake in antiretroviral therapy (ART), are critical for progressive declines
in HIV infections. Our prevention of mother to child transmission (PMCT) uptake
has increased significantly, resultantly reducing the vertical transmission of
HIV from mother to baby," she said.
Premier Molewa registered concerns in the fight against tuberculosis (TB).
She was referring to increment of 727 in TB cases in 2007 from 711 TB cases per
100 000 people in 2005. The province has since intensified the strategy to
increase the cure rate from the current 55 percent to 65 percent.
To achieve this, the province has constructed dedicated provincial multi
drug resistant (MDR) and extreme drug resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB) facility
at Tshepong Hospital, and preparations are underway for facilities in other
districts.
Molewa said the tracing of defaulters had been intensified through the
procurement of 28 vehicles dedicated for defaulter tracing and management.
The vehicles which have been purchased at a cost of about R3 million, are
envisaged to assist in the management of the TB programme, especially in
tracing TB contacts and defaulters, transporting TB patients to and from
hospital for TB programme.
The management of TB defaulters will also strengthen other TB strategies
such as the Directly Observed Treatment Strategy (DOTS) where patients are
directly monitored taking their treatment. DOTS remain a key strategy in
ensuring that TB patients complete their treatment as prescribed.
Issued by: North West Provincial Government
13 February 2009
