Date: 18/11/2003
Source: Free State Provincial Government
Title: Tsopo: Free State Health Focus Month: Philani Choir Competition
SPEECH BY FREE STATE MEC FOR HEALTH, MS OUMA TSOPO, ON THE OCCASION OF THE PHILANI AWARDS CEREMONY, Bloemfontein, 20 November 2003
Programme Director; Honoured Guests; Ladies and Gentlemen,
INTRODUCTION
The moment of truth has arrived. We meet yet again for this prestigious ceremony where we celebrate talent in the Free State Department of Health. As I have been going around the institutions and district during the course of this year, I have been inundated by many claims from these institutions with each one of them swearing that they are going to grab this choir competition trophy. All that I know personally is that, for the duration that this competition has been on in this department, only one institution has been dominant, and we know which institution that is. I hope that today this dominance shall be eradicated.
Honoured guests, I hope we all know by now, not only the origin and purpose of this choir competition, but also the context within which it takes place. For the benefit of those who do not know as yet, let me explain that this event is taking place within the context of our Health Focus Month celebrations. This month of November is a month dedicated to our Health Focus Month programme, which occurs on an annual basis.
This Health Focus Month is already half way through the month and several activities have already taken place across the length and breadth of our province. This programme started with the visits to various farming or rural communities in the five districts in the province under the theme of rural health services. The purpose of these visits to these areas was to conduct health promotion exercises in these areas but also to underscore the fact that health services are also meant for the rural masses.
As part of this Health Focus Month programme we also embarked on the programme of opening clinics in the province. We have so far opened clinics in the three districts of the province, one at Theunissen in the Lejweleputswa district, one at Lindley in the Thabo Mofutsanyana district and another one in Thaba Nchu in the Motheo district.
On Sunday, 9 November, we held a prayer service graced by both the honourable Minister, Dr Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, and the honourable Premier, Ms Winkie Direko, at Pelonomi hospital. On the 13th of this month we held health walks across the province in all the districts. These health walks symbolically took place simultaneously in several towns of the province. The purpose of these health walks was to educate our communities in the Free State around the importance of physical exercise in their lives for them to stay healthy.
As a matter of fact, one other reason for the Health Focus Month programme is health promotion. These walks, like many of the activities in this programme so far, were a resounding success and I am proud that as the department we have learnt a great deal in event management. I hope this will be sustained, particularly as we will be hosting the national event for the celebration of the World AIDS Day on 1 December.
Again on 14 November, while opening the Thaba Nchu clinic in the Motheo district, we also officially opened the Multiple Drug Resistance Unit at Dr JS Moroka hospital. This unit is one of the very significant institutions in this province given the challenge of the pandemic of tuberculosis.
More events are still to follow and because we want you to support these events as they take place in various parts of the province I want to announce them to you as follows:
* Philani Service Excellence Awards on 20 November
* The Nursing Summit on 21 and 22 November
* The celebration of the ten years anniversary of Bongani Hospital on 24 November
* Opening of the Lesedi and Seeisoville clinics in Kroonstad on 25 November
* Raising the curtain for the revitalisation of Boitumelo Hospital on 25 November
* Renaming of the lecture hall and committee room at Universitas Hospital and the Faculty of Health Sciences on 26 November
* Opening of the I and E blocks and renaming of the maternity ward at Pelonomi Hospital on 27 November
* Hosting the Workshop on Hospitals on 27 and 28 November
* Opening the hydroponic vegetable tunnel at Boitumelong School in Thaba Nchu on 29 November
* Celebration of the World AIDS Day on 1 December at Good Year Park stadium in Bloemfontein.
I want to emphasise that the World AIDS Day event on 1December, notwithstanding the significance of all these other events, is the pinnacle of this Health Focus Month programme. As Free Staters we need to go all out and mobilise resources and energies for the greater success of this event since our province will not only be on the national stage but also an international stage. Everything possible must be done by all to ensure that we come out of this event a proud province.
THE PHILANI CHOIR COMPETITION
Programme director, ladies and gentlemen, honoured guests, now to the business of the day. I want to reiterate my beginning statement: the moment of truth has arrived. Like I stated last year, this choir competition is the first stage of the Philani Service Excellence Awards ceremony that we also host annually and which will be on the 20th of this month, as I already announced. As a matter of fact, we refer to this choir competition as the Philani Choir Competition, precisely because it directly forms part of this Service Excellence Awards ceremony. You will remember that the choir competition and the Service Excellence Awards were once on the same day, but because of logistical reasons, we deemed it fit that we must separate the two to have them on different days. But they are still the children of the same mother.
Honoured guests, I want to express my delight, as I have already done so before, about the fact that this department is able to not only initiate programmes and projects but also to sustain them in such a manner that they do not lose momentum for a second. This is about being focused and being disciplined enough to keep the eyes on the goal post and not to be sidetracked, as the honourable Premier would say, by trivialities. This choir competition is one of the sustainable projects that we have undertaken. In the context of this continuity and sustainability I want to take a paragraph from my statement last year when we gathered in this manner to listen to the melodious voices that exist in this department and I quote:
"This stage upon which we meet today can be characterised as the cultural milieu or cultural platform. Some might ask as to what is the relevance of music in general or choir competitions in particular towards health services. I can answer this kind of a question with a quotation from that old time English writer, William Shakespeare, when he said: 'If music be the fruit of love so play on and give it in excess'. We believe what we are providing in the Department of Health is love, health and life to those who are ridden by diseases and ill health. Now, to paraphrase Shakespeare, if music be the fruit of love, health and life, then let us play it on and give it in excess to all our patients who will be soothed and cured by it."
I now want to take this opportunity to wish good luck to all the choirs or institutions involved in this competition. Like I advised you all during last year's competition I want to repeat my words to you, give us your melodious voices that I know you have without having any butterflies in your stomachs about losing or winning in this competition. This competition, is not about winning and losing, but about expressing your artistic inner selves as human beings and as Africans. Let us take this as a moment of relaxation for everyone and not as another moment of stress.
CONCLUSION
Ladies and gentlemen, let me further take this opportunity to present to you a person that you know and who is the main speaker for today. She is a sister to some of us, a mother to most of us and a grandmother to all of us. Please let us pay a close attention to the mother of the province as she addresses in a moment.
I thank you.
Issued by: Department of Health, Free State Provincial Government
18 November 2003
Source: Free State Provincial Government
Title: Tsopo: Free State Health Focus Month: Philani Choir Competition
SPEECH BY FREE STATE MEC FOR HEALTH, MS OUMA TSOPO, ON THE OCCASION OF THE PHILANI AWARDS CEREMONY, Bloemfontein, 20 November 2003
Programme Director; Honoured Guests; Ladies and Gentlemen,
INTRODUCTION
The moment of truth has arrived. We meet yet again for this prestigious ceremony where we celebrate talent in the Free State Department of Health. As I have been going around the institutions and district during the course of this year, I have been inundated by many claims from these institutions with each one of them swearing that they are going to grab this choir competition trophy. All that I know personally is that, for the duration that this competition has been on in this department, only one institution has been dominant, and we know which institution that is. I hope that today this dominance shall be eradicated.
Honoured guests, I hope we all know by now, not only the origin and purpose of this choir competition, but also the context within which it takes place. For the benefit of those who do not know as yet, let me explain that this event is taking place within the context of our Health Focus Month celebrations. This month of November is a month dedicated to our Health Focus Month programme, which occurs on an annual basis.
This Health Focus Month is already half way through the month and several activities have already taken place across the length and breadth of our province. This programme started with the visits to various farming or rural communities in the five districts in the province under the theme of rural health services. The purpose of these visits to these areas was to conduct health promotion exercises in these areas but also to underscore the fact that health services are also meant for the rural masses.
As part of this Health Focus Month programme we also embarked on the programme of opening clinics in the province. We have so far opened clinics in the three districts of the province, one at Theunissen in the Lejweleputswa district, one at Lindley in the Thabo Mofutsanyana district and another one in Thaba Nchu in the Motheo district.
On Sunday, 9 November, we held a prayer service graced by both the honourable Minister, Dr Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, and the honourable Premier, Ms Winkie Direko, at Pelonomi hospital. On the 13th of this month we held health walks across the province in all the districts. These health walks symbolically took place simultaneously in several towns of the province. The purpose of these health walks was to educate our communities in the Free State around the importance of physical exercise in their lives for them to stay healthy.
As a matter of fact, one other reason for the Health Focus Month programme is health promotion. These walks, like many of the activities in this programme so far, were a resounding success and I am proud that as the department we have learnt a great deal in event management. I hope this will be sustained, particularly as we will be hosting the national event for the celebration of the World AIDS Day on 1 December.
Again on 14 November, while opening the Thaba Nchu clinic in the Motheo district, we also officially opened the Multiple Drug Resistance Unit at Dr JS Moroka hospital. This unit is one of the very significant institutions in this province given the challenge of the pandemic of tuberculosis.
More events are still to follow and because we want you to support these events as they take place in various parts of the province I want to announce them to you as follows:
* Philani Service Excellence Awards on 20 November
* The Nursing Summit on 21 and 22 November
* The celebration of the ten years anniversary of Bongani Hospital on 24 November
* Opening of the Lesedi and Seeisoville clinics in Kroonstad on 25 November
* Raising the curtain for the revitalisation of Boitumelo Hospital on 25 November
* Renaming of the lecture hall and committee room at Universitas Hospital and the Faculty of Health Sciences on 26 November
* Opening of the I and E blocks and renaming of the maternity ward at Pelonomi Hospital on 27 November
* Hosting the Workshop on Hospitals on 27 and 28 November
* Opening the hydroponic vegetable tunnel at Boitumelong School in Thaba Nchu on 29 November
* Celebration of the World AIDS Day on 1 December at Good Year Park stadium in Bloemfontein.
I want to emphasise that the World AIDS Day event on 1December, notwithstanding the significance of all these other events, is the pinnacle of this Health Focus Month programme. As Free Staters we need to go all out and mobilise resources and energies for the greater success of this event since our province will not only be on the national stage but also an international stage. Everything possible must be done by all to ensure that we come out of this event a proud province.
THE PHILANI CHOIR COMPETITION
Programme director, ladies and gentlemen, honoured guests, now to the business of the day. I want to reiterate my beginning statement: the moment of truth has arrived. Like I stated last year, this choir competition is the first stage of the Philani Service Excellence Awards ceremony that we also host annually and which will be on the 20th of this month, as I already announced. As a matter of fact, we refer to this choir competition as the Philani Choir Competition, precisely because it directly forms part of this Service Excellence Awards ceremony. You will remember that the choir competition and the Service Excellence Awards were once on the same day, but because of logistical reasons, we deemed it fit that we must separate the two to have them on different days. But they are still the children of the same mother.
Honoured guests, I want to express my delight, as I have already done so before, about the fact that this department is able to not only initiate programmes and projects but also to sustain them in such a manner that they do not lose momentum for a second. This is about being focused and being disciplined enough to keep the eyes on the goal post and not to be sidetracked, as the honourable Premier would say, by trivialities. This choir competition is one of the sustainable projects that we have undertaken. In the context of this continuity and sustainability I want to take a paragraph from my statement last year when we gathered in this manner to listen to the melodious voices that exist in this department and I quote:
"This stage upon which we meet today can be characterised as the cultural milieu or cultural platform. Some might ask as to what is the relevance of music in general or choir competitions in particular towards health services. I can answer this kind of a question with a quotation from that old time English writer, William Shakespeare, when he said: 'If music be the fruit of love so play on and give it in excess'. We believe what we are providing in the Department of Health is love, health and life to those who are ridden by diseases and ill health. Now, to paraphrase Shakespeare, if music be the fruit of love, health and life, then let us play it on and give it in excess to all our patients who will be soothed and cured by it."
I now want to take this opportunity to wish good luck to all the choirs or institutions involved in this competition. Like I advised you all during last year's competition I want to repeat my words to you, give us your melodious voices that I know you have without having any butterflies in your stomachs about losing or winning in this competition. This competition, is not about winning and losing, but about expressing your artistic inner selves as human beings and as Africans. Let us take this as a moment of relaxation for everyone and not as another moment of stress.
CONCLUSION
Ladies and gentlemen, let me further take this opportunity to present to you a person that you know and who is the main speaker for today. She is a sister to some of us, a mother to most of us and a grandmother to all of us. Please let us pay a close attention to the mother of the province as she addresses in a moment.
I thank you.
Issued by: Department of Health, Free State Provincial Government
18 November 2003
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