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Date
: 27/11/2005
Source: Department of Health
Title: Tshabalala-Msimang: Imbizo & Healthy Lifestyles
Celebration
Speech by the Minister of Health, M Tshabalala-Msimang at the
Imbizo & Healthy Lifestyles Celebration, Kungwini,
Bronkhorstspruit in Mpumalanga Province
Programme Director
Distinguished Guests
Ladies and Gentlemen
It gives me great pleasure to greet you all this morning. I also
feel honoured to be here today to conduct the Imbizo and to
celebrate the Healthy Lifestyles with the Kungwini community. An
active and healthy nation is the key to a better life. South
Africans are still living in conditions that expose them to
diseases. Most of our communities are still struggling to access
safe, clean water and proper sanitation, housing, electricity,
etc.
Programme Director, it will not be wise of me if I do not share
with this Imbizo an important campaign we have embarked on from
Friday, the 16 Days of Activism of No Violence Against Women and
Children. In this campaign, the government, its partners and
community at large will be conducting activities throughout the
country as an effort to end gender-based violence. I was in
Polokwane to launch this campaign in partnership with men who are
committed to join the struggle to stop the violence against women
and children. I would like to call upon all of you to join the
campaign and protect our wonderful women and innocent
children.
The Department of Health has been going all over the country
promoting healthy lifestyles to our communities. Our main aim is to
raise awareness about lifestyle chronic diseases which cause
disabilities and premature deaths among communities, and today we
have incorporated the Healthy Lifestyles activities in this Imbizo.
We are conducting the health screening on site and I invite each
one of you here, to take this opportunity and get a free health
screening.
Adopting healthy lifestyles means to achieve better health gains
and quality of life. Therefore, again I encourage all of you to
practice behaviours that enhance health, like engaging in regular
physical activity or health walks as we have done this morning. Let
us all try to eat a healthy diet, avoid smoking and practice safe
sex.
These days, many people live fast lives and therefore, they end up
consuming fast foods like fried foods and fizzy drinks. This
lifestyle will put you at risk of acquiring heart disease, diabetes
and hypertension which is very harmful to your lives. Again, this
morning I have donated garden implements to some of the food garden
projects here in this area to emphasise the importance of growing
your own food gardens.
As part of my constituency work in Mpumalanga province to monitor
and accelerate service delivery, I requested a meeting in July 2005
with senior officials and councillors from both Motsweding and
Kungwini municipalities, to understand the challenges facing the
two municipalities and community. During the meeting, which was
attended by various community groups including Branch Chairpersons
and Secretaries of the ANC, Cosatu, SACP and Kungwini Residence
Association, we deliberated on many issues affecting the community.
One of the main concerns raised in all the meetings that I attended
in the area was the cross-border issue.
The claims were that cross-border issues have had negative effects
in the functioning of the ANC structures in the area and had also
hampered service delivery, especially in the farming communities
outside Bronkhorstspruit. The main thing was to encourage comrades
to remain focused on the issue that matters most, the delivery of
government services to our people. This indeed requires that we
find amicable solutions to the problems that hamper service
delivery.
We conducted visits to assess service delivery around Motsweding
District including Ekangala township, Rethabiseng township,
Three-Beeches and Kwa-Lapa farming communities.
We had a meeting with the community of Three–Beeches, who
listed an array of health-related issues, which included lack of
safe water, mobile clinics, poor sanitation as well as poor of road
infrastructure and transport service. The community shared water
sources with livestock.
At this meeting, the frustrated residents indicated that they had
reported their concerns about poor service delivery to the
councillor in charge of the area, who happens to be a DA
councillor. Instead of addressing the community concerns, he
allegedly told them to go to Mandela.
Kwa-Lapa farming community alleged that they were being terrorised
by farm owners. It was alleged that a farmer had used a tractor to
demolish one of the houses belonging to a farm worker. I requested
ANC MP, Mr JB Sibanyoni to assist the family to open a criminal
case against the farmer. A case of malicious damage to property is
being investigated.
We instructed City Environmental Officers and Health promoters of
the Mpumalanga Health District office to provide bleach for water
purification, water tanks and health education to the affected
communities.
Water samples were also collected from the faecal contaminated
water sources along Rietfontein river and other water streams in
the farming area, and sent for analysis.
Samples were found to have a number of bacteria associated with
diarrhoeal and other water-borne diseases, implying that the water
was not fit for human consumption.
I then instructed city environmental officers to investigate the
possibility of re-opening the boreholes in the farms, which were
closed during change of ownerships. I am still awaiting a report
from the City Environmental Office of the Mpumalanga Health
District on this issue.
The problems in the area also included people with disabilities who
have no wheelchairs. This is why today I have organised 100
wheelchairs to be given to those who submitted their names to their
councillors requesting wheelchairs. One of the people to receive a
wheelchair today is a three year old child I found at Three-Beeches
farming community during my visit, who was left by her mother after
birth in the care of her grandmother.
The Department of Health also addressed the challenge of a lack of
proper sanitation and the absence of mobile clinics in remote
areas, as well as shortage of staff and poor service reported at
Kangala Clinic. The MEC for Health in Mpumalanga has committed
himself to addressing some of the issues. These include procurement
of medical stock, repairing the Kangala clinic, deploying dentists
to the area, providing a mobile clinic to the farming community and
advertising posts for additional health staff.
A sanitation project will soon be launched and local residents will
be employed to assist in this regard. The Executive Mayor Mabona
will spearhead the project. While we have made a number of
interventions to address the challenges facing the communities of
this local municipality, the problems in the area require a
coordinated effort by different government departments.
Programme director, may I take this opportunity to thank all of you
for participating in this Imbizo and the Healthy Lifestyles
Awareness day, and hope the community of Kungwini Municipality will
benefit from the deliberation and activities we’ve had
today.
In particular, I want to express my sincere thanks to all my
colleagues who join me in this endeavour, our partners and task
teams that made this day a success.
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