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Date: 07/04/2006
Source: Ministry of Health
Title: Tshabalala-Msimang: Launch of National Human Resource Plan
for Health during World Health Day
Speech by the Minister of Health, Dr Manto
Tshabalala-Msimang, at the Launch of the National Human Resource
Plan for Health during the World Health Day Emperor’s Palace,
Kempton Park
Programme Director,
Our Special guest, the WHO-AFRO Regional Director, Dr Luis
Sambo,
My colleagues,
Members of the National Health Council,
Members of the health portfolio committee,
Health officials and representatives of other government
departments, Representatives of academic institutions,
Statutory councils,
Professional associations,
Organised labour, Private health sector and other
stakeholders,
Honoured guests,
Ladies and gentlemen,
Today is a very important day in the health calendar, it is World
Health Day. This year we are dedicating this day to the most
important component of the health care delivery system, our health
workers under the theme: ‘Working together for
health.’
As we observe this day here in South Africa by launching our
National Human Resource Plan (NHRP) for health, the World Health
Organisation (WHO) is in Lusaka, Zambia, launching its annual World
Health Report, which is also dedicated to the subject of human
resources for health this year.
We are fortunate as a country that despite the importance of the
event in Lusaka the WHO Regional Director for Africa is with us
today as we observe this historic day for the health sector in
South Africa. We truly appreciate your presence here with us
especially since this comes a few days after the eighth World
Conference on Violence Prevention and Safety Promotion, which you
also attended in Durban.
It is indeed a great pleasure for me to present the Human Resources
Plan (HRP) for health to our stakeholders, members of the media and
all of you gathered at this conference today.
The National Health Act No. 61 of 2003 requires that the National
Health Council formulate policy and guidelines for the development,
distribution and effective utilisation as well as the management of
human resources within the national health system. In implementing
this provision of the Act, we initiated a process of developing the
human resources plan for health. The plan we are presenting today
is the outcome of a process of interaction with various role
players in the health sector over a significant period of time. We
promised you that the Department of Health was going to
meticulously develop this plan to ensure that all stakeholders who
wish to give input do indeed have sufficient opportunity to do so.
We are pleased with the overwhelming response that the Department
has received during the comment period.
Many of the good ideas and substantive inputs by stakeholders have
found their way into the plan. We are therefore confident that this
is truly a product of a wide consultation and contribution from
many stakeholders.
The WHO’s toolkit for developing country human resource plans
was utilised as a major reference document in the early stages of
drafting the strategic framework for this plan. I also wish to
thank the World Health Organisation Regional Office for Africa
(WHO-AFRO) office through the Regional Director for the comments
received from his office. I believe that we have a good basis for
cooperation with WHO on human resource planning and
development.
South Africa like many other low and middle income countries in the
world is faced with serious challenges in the area of human
resources for health. These challenges relate to supply and demand
as well as the ability to retain health professionals in developing
countries, especially within the public sector in our
countries.
South Africa has played a significant role in ensuring that
migration of health personnel remains high on the global health
agenda. While we continue to address these issues at national level
there is a need for a bilateral and multilateral framework to guide
the migration of personnel. We need to ensure that recruitment
campaigns in developed countries of the north do not undermine our
efforts in the south to have adequate supply and distribution of
health workers.
The Report being released in Zambia today acknowledges the historic
nature of an agreement we signed in 2003 with the United Kingdom
(UK) to create partnerships on health education and workforce
issues and facilitate time limited placements. Within the framework
of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), the World Report states
that opportunities have been provided for health professionals from
one country to spend time limited education and practice periods in
the other country to the benefit of both countries.
The Report also acknowledges the role of our hospital
revitalisation programme as an intervention to improve working
conditions and retain health professionals. This programme includes
infrastructural development, provision of equipment and improvement
of management capacity in our hospitals.
We are dealing with the serious challenges that exist within the
health system to make sure that health professionals remain within
the health system. We have to ensure that we improve the working
conditions within the public sector. We know that factors such as
people management, facility management and accommodation also
contribute to retention of skilled health personnel within the
public health sector and in remote facilities.
Over the years our health system has had to deal with the loss of
experienced health professionals from rural to urban areas from
public to private sector and from South Africa to mainly developed
countries. It is important to note that although a concrete human
resource plan for health has not been in place, there are many
interventions we have implemented to address the challenges in the
area of human resources.
The human resource plan for health provides an overall framework
for all these interventions aimed improving supply and distribution
of health personnel and providing the appropriate skill mix for
provision of health services. The plan we are presenting today is a
major step towards appropriate health workforce planning.
A number of issues are addressed in the plan. Fundamental to these
is the question of stewardship for healthcare and its implications.
We address this issue in detail and identify certain activities
that the Department of Health has to do to ensure that government
firmly fulfils this responsibility.
While we cannot deny that HR planning is not ideal without a
certain amount of standardisation and benchmarking there has been a
growing realisation of a need to develop context sensitive workload
indicators. This should assist in planning more accurately for
services required at the different levels of care. As anticipated
this has generated a lot of engagement and will surely lead to a
new approach to dealing with the health workload demands in our
health system.
This plan puts forward a framework that identifies guiding
principles, strategic objectives and broad activities to act as an
anchor of the HR planning. We take the view that the national plan
should act as a reference that all stakeholders should use in their
planning.
The broad activities mentioned would therefore not at this stage
have time schedules attached to them. These activities relate to
the areas of function of the national and provincial Departments of
Health and various role players including health science education
institutions, private health sector, statutory councils and labour
organisations. Each of these bodies is expected to further identify
sub-activities as part of implementation and attach timeframes to
these to complement national efforts to address HR
challenges.
In order for this plan to be successful in addressing HR challenges
in our country, stakeholder participation in implementation is
vital. The challenges in our national health system are spread
across both the public and private health sectors. We therefore
need to harmonise our approaches using this plan as our guide. We
need to work together to address issues ranging from supply and
demand to prioritised investment as part of the Human Resource
Development Strategy (HRDS) of the country.
This plan calls upon all role players to pool together their
efforts to ensure the attainment of the goals of the South African
health system. It calls upon both the public and the private sector
to work together to improve the health care services provided to
our people.
Programme Director, ladies and gentlemen, it is my pleasure to
officially launch the national human resource plan for health and
to wish this conference fruitful deliberations. This is the
beginning of the process to achieve the correct mix of human
capital at the right places, doing the appropriate work, to the
benefit of our patients and communities.
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