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Date : 09/12/2005
Source:Department of Health
Title: Tshabalala-Msimang: Excellence in Healthcare Awards ceremony


  Speech by the Minister of Health at the awards ceremony for Excellence in Healthcare ceremony, Gallagher Estate

Programme Director
MECs for Health;
Director-General and Heads of Health;
Senior managers
All the sponsors who have supported this event,
Our most important guests,
The award nominees honoured
Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen

Today we are hosting the third combined ceremony of the health excellence awards. When we initiated this project, we did not expect that it would grow to this level and continue to be a flagship of cooperation between the public and private health sectors.

The support that this event has received over the past three years is an indication of the outcomes we can achieve through collaboration amongst various health stakeholders. We have a common mandate to deliver quality healthcare to the people of South Africa. Therefore, we should complement each other and have more joint activities and best practices should be shared and replicated.

As we hold his annual award ceremony, I wish to reiterate that as government we have high regard for all categories of our health workers and professionals. We appreciate their efforts and fully understand that health workers are the most critical resource in meeting our constitutional mandate of ensuring access to quality healthcare.

The different awards that will be presented tonight are our little token of appreciation for your valuable contribution to improving the health of our population. We are aware that some of the health categories are not adequately covered. We shall be including more project type awards to make sure that most health workers are able to participate in this initiative. We should now move towards awarding groups or teams because, indeed, effective healthcare delivery requires teamwork amongst different categories of health workers.

This year we shall be awarding a special honour to one of our people who worked tirelessly to assist in the field of health research. Unfortunately, because of apartheid policies his contribution was never highlighted until after the attainment of democracy in 1994. Programme director, this year we have taken some significant steps in breaking with our unfortunate past and in delivering on our mandate of a better health for all. Ten of the 12 chapters of the National Health Act (Act No 61 of 2003) come into effect in May after the Act was proclaimed by our President, President Thabo Mbeki.

This Act replaces the last trace of apartheid in health policy - the Health Act of 1977. It also provides a framework for a structured uniform health system and unites the various elements of the national health system in a common goal to improve universal access to quality health services, taking into account the obligations imposed by the Constitution. We had some challenges and a number of achievements over the past year. We had to deal with the control of infections in hospitals and respond to the outbreak of diseases like typhoid in Delmas.

We replaced a racist blood-profiling model with model based on donor status which further limits the expose of patients to undue risk posed by transmission of diseases such as hepatitis B and C and HIV through blood transfusion.

Building on the high levels of HIV and AIDS awareness in the country, we have declared 2006 as the year of accelerated HIV prevention. We will be intensifying communication and behaviour change messages and interventions targeting particularly those groups that still pose a challenge in terms of prevalence of HIV. After establishing a service point in all 53 districts of the country by the end of the last financial year, we have continued to expand access to HIV and AIDS related treatment to about 200 facilities covering 62% of the local municipalities.

The Constitutional Court has on at least two occasions reaffirmed our objective of increasing access to affordable, quality medicine for all South Africans and that these medicines should be dispensed by appropriately trained health professionals.

There is a need for more co-operation as we all seek to comply with the ruling of the Constitutional Court with regard to the pricing of medicine. We need to ensure that all the information that is required to arrive at an appropriate dispensing fee is provided. While an impression was created that most pharmacists would go under if they continued to charge a dispensing fee of 26% up to the maximum of R26, most pharmacists have failed to supply the Department of Health with data on their income and expenditure to illustrate this point and assist in setting the fee at an appropriate level. Of the 2500 pharmacists operating in the country, only 150 had provided this information by the end of last month.

Government remains committed to meet its objective of making medicine more affordable, but also ensure that the country has a viable retail pharmacy industry.

There is a need to increase the supply and improve the distribution of health professionals in the country.

We would like to express our gratitude to all organisations that made input into the development of the Human Resource Plan for Health. This document is being finalised considering your input and will be channelled through the appropriate decision making process within government.

In the meantime, we have implemented a number of initiatives to improve both the working conditions of health workers and the remuneration structures through the introduction of scarce skills and rural allowances. We have also introduced new management structures with the authority to implement health policies at facility level.

We are finding innovative ways to address the issue of human resources for health including the development of mid-level health worker category which includes medical, pharmacist and nursing assistants. These health workers should bring relief to other health professionals particularly in these specific categories.

Another document which has inspired a very constructive engagement between the public and private health sector as well as civil society is the Charter for the Health Sector. A negotiating team made up of representatives of various constituencies in the health sector has been established to ensure that we have consensus on various issues covered by the Charter.

Our approach in developing the Charter has been to ensure that this becomes an inclusive process that allows all stakeholders an opportunity to make inputs. Our goal is to have a document that should be adopted by all health stakeholders as a statement of our collective commitment to improving access, equity and quality of healthcare and overall transformation of this sector.

Programme Director, there has been no better way of delivering our health promotion messages more emphatically than to encourage South Africans to take responsibility for their health. We launched the Healthy Lifestyle Programme as a multi-sectoral campaign focuses on physical activity, good nutrition, tobacco control and curbing alcohol and substance abuse, safe sexual behaviour and health screening.

Physical inactivity and inappropriate diets have become major health threats contributing to the rise in obesity and overweight as well as an increase of non-communicable diseases such as diabetes and cardiovascular diseases. We responded to the challenge of physical inactivity by launching the Move for Health campaign within the Healthy Lifestyles programme. Our slogan is Vuka South Africa, Move for your Health. I urge all of you to continue to support the Healthy Lifestyles Programme as it encompasses critical interventions in dealing with both communicable and non-communicable diseases as well as violence and trauma affecting our people.

We need to raise public health awareness within our population and empower our people to take care of their own health and prevent the onset of diseases.

The theme for tonight ‘Healthcare is Quality Care’ calls for introspection among health care providers to examine the quality of the care we are providing. It is true that there is still a great amount of work that needs to be done to ensure that all our public facilities are truly hospitable institutions that provide quality service for the ill, the infirm and the injured.

There are challenges that relate to the following general areas: The improvement of the previously fragmented health system Management capacity at facility level and the interaction between our health professionals and the communities we serve.

The Health systems issues cover challenges of inequitable distribution of resources between the public and private sector, human resource management, which I have spoken about, and effective implementation of the many good policies we have formulated over the past 11 years.

We have already met with hospitals managers to address some of the management issues at facility level. We have budgeted R150 million this year for improving management capacity and we hope that all provinces will be able to spend this conditional grant in strengthening this critical area of our delivery system.

At the meeting with hospital managers, we committed to meet with organised labour, professional associations and councils to discuss issues of discipline and develop a common perspective in terms of how we need to promote caring ethos amongst our health workers.

Although cases of misconduct make headlines, we know that they do not reflect the general conduct of our health workers on the ground. We know that most of our health workers are dedicated to the delivery of quality health care. Our gratitude goes to all those health workers who go an extra mile in ensuring that we improve the health of our populations.

The outside world has lured our professionals by promising better packages because our health workers have very competitive skills. But having interacted with our professionals that emigrated, I can assure you that career satisfaction is not only about accumulation of a few extra dollars or pounds. It is also about an opportunity to explore your full potential as a professional. We are in the process of recruiting some of these health workers back into the public health sector.

I must pay tribute to those health professionals who have remained in our health facilities and reaffirmed their commitment to provide health care to our people. We are improving our working conditions to ensure that our professionals have adequate opportunities for career growth within the public health sector. We are also making available opportunities to work in other countries for a specified period in order to gain the desired international exposure.

With these awards, we are sending a massage to our health workers that their continued effort to deliver quality health does not go unnoticed and unappreciated. I want to thank all of you for the hard work and determination to improve the health of all South Africans.

Let me take this opportunity to wish all of you a happy Christmas and a Prosperous New Year. Those of you who will be travelling make sure you drive safely, do not drink and drive. We hope to meet you during 2006.

Please enjoy the rest of the evening and have a safe journey home.

Thank you.

Issued by: Department of Health
9 December 2005
   

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