Minister of Health Manto Tshabalala-Msimang on Thursday promised South Africans an accessible, caring and high-quality health system.
She was speaking at the media launch of the Department of Health’s Strategic Priorities for the National Health System: 2004 to 2009 in Pretoria.
”We will work hard to ensure that every health worker, whether in the public or private health sector, whether manager or front-line health worker, whether academic or researcher, embodies this vision as they perform their daily activities,” Tshabalala-Msimang said.
The plan follows the Health Sector Strategic Framework: 1999 to 2004, which was popularly called the Ten-Point Plan because it had 10 priority areas.
Tshabalala-Msimang’s new plan also lists 10 key areas:
- Improving the governance and management of the national health system;
- Promoting healthy lifestyles;
- Contributing towards human dignity by improving quality of care;
- Improving the management of communicable diseases and non-communicable illnesses;
- Strengthening primary health care, emergency medical services and hospital services;
- Strengthening support services;
- Human resource planning, development and management;
- Planning, budgeting and monitoring and evaluation;
- Drafting and implementing health legislation; and
- Strengthening international relations.
”[It] does not mean that if a particular health matter is not on the list of priorities, the department will ignore it. This list represents those things that we must pay particular attention to amongst all the other things that we do every day,” the often-controversial minister added.
”Why did we select these priorities and why did we package them in this way? The health system is labour intensive and more than 60% of our budget is spent on personnel. This means that we must strengthen the management of this resource,” Tshabalala-Msimang added.
”We have also put primary health care, the emergency medical services and hospitals into one set of priorities. We have done this deliberately. Patients must not experience any barriers to access to care regardless of who provides this service — be it provincial or local government or the private health sector.”
On medicine prices, she said the department will continue its efforts to improve access to good quality, affordable medicine for all.
”Despite opposition from certain interest groups, our efforts to push down the prices of medicines and to ensure that those who dispense medicine have the necessary competencies have, for now, stood the test of our judicial system. We hope that the court will once again vindicate the validity of [the] government endeavour to make medicine more affordable in the country when it rules on the medicine pricing regulations.”
Tshabalala-Msimang said some analysts are already saying the current regulations have caused a decrease of up to 16% on medicine prices.
She added that progress is being made by the Partnership against Aids.
”We are intensifying the partnership approach as we work towards meeting our targets with regard to the Comprehensive Plan for Management, Care and Treatment of HIV and Aids,” she explained.
”We are increasing service points to all districts where a series of interventions aimed at prolonging the progression from HIV infection to development of Aids-defining conditions can be provided … These include nutritional support, traditional medicine, treatment of opportunistic infections and anti-retroviral therapy.
”We expect the tender for [the] long-term supply of anti-retroviral drugs to be finalised by the end of next month.”
She was concerned about the department’s inability to meet targets on managing tuberculosis. Meetings have been scheduled to deal with the issue.
Meanwhile, Democratic Alliance health spokesperson Ryan Coetzee lambasted the department for its inability to staff state hospitals — often a byword for inefficiency and waste.
”It is now abundantly clear that the government does not have any strategy remotely capable of solving the staff shortage crisis,” Coetzee said in a statement on Thursday.
”A combination of answers to Parliamentary questions asked by the DA in Parliament and in the Gauteng provincial legislature, and the shocking findings of the South Africa health reviews released yesterday [Wednesday], make it clear that the crisis is out of control.” — Sapa