Ga-Rankuwa Hospital, Pretoria 23 August 2001
Honoured guest, ladies and gentlemen
I would like to welcome you to the launch of the draft Gender Policy Guidelines for the Health Sector. I am glad that we have been able to launch this document during the month of August This is the time when the whole of our country gives special focus to issues that affect women.
As you know, the first five years of our democratic government saw the racial and gender inequality laws being replaced with those that facilitate social transformation directed particularly at the previously disadvantaged citizens (black population and women). For the first time in our history, gender equality was included in the transformation agenda of the state and the country.
The Department of Health is one of the government departments that did not waste anytime in formulating transformation policies and programmes that improve the status of women. Amongst those formulated were the following: Free Health Care for pregnant women and children under the age of six (1994), Termination of Pregnancy Act (1997), Confidential Enquiry into Maternal Deaths (1998) and Free Primary care services since 1996, with the exclusion of hospital outpatient services
Although several legislation and policy decisions have been made, they are not on their own sufficient to achieve real and meaningful gender equality and equity in our public health system. We recognised that in some instances, gender issues were not being considered in the process of policy development and service implementation. The results have been that the ability to address widespread gender problems remains limited. The understanding of our health workers of how gender norms affect their clients' health and health seeking behaviour is low and this reduces the effectiveness of our responses and treatment.
For instance, gender-based violence represents a critical area for state intervention. Violence against women affects all spheres of women's lives, their autonomy, productivity and capacity to care for themselves and their children. It increases women's exposure to a wide range of negative health risks including HIV/AIDS. It carries great costs to the survivor and many sectors of the society including the health care system, which has to respond to its consequences.
The lack of a comprehensive approach in the provision of care and collecting evidence in cases of rape and sexual assault negatively affects women and it constitutes another dimension of inequality in the provision of services. We have therefore, started the Forensic Nurse Training programme that is aimed at providing skills for effective management and support for the survivors of violence, rape and abuse.
Some health workers have already been trained in the Northern Cape and another training is running currently in KwaZulu-Natal. We are looking at standardising this training nationally and ensure that it is available across the country. Our goal is to ensure that all our health workers are capable and ready to provide a good and effective service to abused women and girl children.
I should mention here that there are a number of one-stop centres, which offer comprehensive service to survivors of violence that have been opened in almost every the provinces. On the Women's Day, our Department was opening one such centre in Umtata in the Eastern Cape. By visit one of these centres, a survivor of violence is able to access services from various government departments including Health, Social Development and Safety and Security and Justice at one point.
Our government has certainly displayed much commitment to addressing historic gender imbalances in the country. There has been a very conscious and active role on the part of government to highlight gender imbalances as a critical part of transforming the state and reconstructing and developing the country. This included the following government activities:
Paralleling the introduction of respective policy and legislation, there has been the setting up of a national machinery to ensure that gender is integrated into the core business and functions of ministries, parliament, government departments and resource allocation. Alongside formal structures of government, there have been state- civil society initiatives, most notably, the Women's Budget Initiative, which aims to highlight the importance of engendering the budgeting process. It is clear that despite all the constraints in which we operate, the post apartheid South African state has made many strides to contribute towards overall gender transformation.
As the Minister of Health and a woman, I want to ensure that we speed up the process of substantive empowerment of grassroots women, particularly at service delivery level. I am determined to ensure that by the end of our term of office, the health sector, which I have been charged to lead, is transformed into a "gender sensitive sector". Our institutions should be ones that in their formal procedures or in their informal practices include women and enables them to gain opportunities for personal development and upward mobility. We have demonstrated our passion for improving the quality of life and the status of women in our country by first of all upgrading the Department's Gender Focal Point and creating a fully-fledged Directorate for Gender in March 2000.
Over the past year, this Directorate has focused on developing a national gender policy for the Department, the draft version of which we are launching today. As an integral part of a consultative process that has culminated to this document, the Department has identified the need for gender sensitisation and gender analysis of all its policies, programmes and other day-to-day activities.
This working document seeks to address gender issues by:
I am glad to report to you today that as far as our human resource composition is concerned, we have surpassed all transformation targets set by the Department of Public Service and Administration by wide margins. Out of the entire employee population in the national Department, 76% of them fall within the designated groups as defined by the Employment Equity Act with women constituting 58% of the total number of employees.
Female managers occupy substantial and commanding positions in the proportional representation of post categories. At a top management level they constitute 44%, middle management level - 59%, junior management -66% and at low level supervision and production they are 56%. This constitute an average of 58% women managers which is almost double the target of 30% female managers set by the DPSA
However, further steps are required to create an enabling environment for women decision-makers and members of staff. We also want to ensure that the changes that have taken place at a national level are reflected throughout the health sector, down to a facility levels. These guidelines will provide an organisational strategic management tool that will facilitate various forms of gender mainstreaming throughout the health system.
We hope that this document will be able to generate as much debate and input as possible and we will soon come together again to finalise and adopt it. This is the document that will be crucial in guiding us through the process of transformation. It will ensure that we do not lose focus and will strengthen our impetus for much needed change.
Thank you