Statement by Minister of Health, Dr Manto Tshabalala-Msimang: Health Minister and MECs meet health sector unions

Together with the MECs for Health, I would like to welcome the media and once again thank the leadership of the trade unions in the health sector [Democratic Nursing Organisation of South Africa (Denosa), Health and Other Services Personnel Trade Union of South Africa (Hospersa), National Education, Health and Allied Workers Union (Nehawu), National Union of Public Service and Allie Workers (Nupsaw) and Public Servants Association (PSA)] for responding positively to our invitation to this meeting.

As you are aware, the strike has had a negative impact on the delivery of health services. The process of reviewing the accumulative effects of the strike including amongst others the cost of transferring patients to private health institutions is still underway. This information will be made available to the media and public once it has been consolidated.

The incidents of violence and intimidation relating to the recent strike are very regrettable and we have to learn from this experience and mitigate against these incidents happening again in the health sector.

At this meeting, we agreed with organised labour that there is an urgent need to work together in normalising the delivery of health services and this message should cascade to provincial, district and facility levels.

The meeting agreed that all parties will act in the spirit of the agreement of the Public Service Co-ordinating Bargaining Council (PSCBC) including the return to work provision. This provision states that essential service employees who participated in the strike will return to work and the employer will replace the letters of dismissals with a final written warning upon return to duty.

We have agreed to work together in dealing with whatever situation that may hinder the delivery of quality health service particularly at a facility level. The Department of Health will meet with hospital managers and the union leadership will interact with shop stewards to ensure that the spirit of the PSCBC agreement is understood at a facility level.

We have reiterated our position as the Department of Health that we are fully committed to improving the conditions of service of the health workers in this country.

We have been lobbying various institutions within government to try and mobilise additional resources for improvement of these working conditions. As a result of this engagement, an additional R1,1 billion has been allocated for improvement of working conditions for nurses in this financial year.

The utilisation of these resources will be finalised through the appropriate collective bargaining processes on the occupational specific dispensation and implemented retrospectively from 1 July 2007. The other categories will be included in this occupational specific dispensation over the following two financial years.

We are also committed as the Department and organised labour to discussing and finalising a minimum service level agreement in the Bargaining Council which we hope will have some role in preventing a recurrence of the recent incidents in the public health sector.

The meeting also agreed that the Department and organised labour should make extra efforts to improve the caring ethos amongst our health workers. We agreed that we have to find a way of working together in this area to ensure that in spite of whatever differences may arise in future, the patient always come first.

The meeting condemned the act of violence and intimidation and appropriate disciplinary processes will be taken in this regard.

We also agreed on the need for more interaction between the Department of Health and the health sector unions to discuss broader issues of transformation of the health sector and improvement of service delivery.

The parties agreed to work together to improve the quality of healthcare.

Contact:
Sibani Mngadi
Cell: 082 772 0161

Issued by: Department of Health
5 July 2007