26 June 2006
Programme Director
Our acting Head of Department Dr Rahman
Managers
Pastor Themba Ngwenya
Health professionals
Ladies and Gentlemen
We gave gathered here this morning to witness another milestone in our ongoing efforts to ensure the availability of good health services closer to our community, to improve the quality of these services and to build a strong, responsive, responsible and caring public health care system in our province.
As government we have identified the building of a strong primary health care system as a cornerstone of our national health system. And as a result we have undertaken a programme to build health facilities such as this one closer to where people live.
Currently clinics are being built in Bophelong, Eersterus, Bekkersdal, Eldorado Park, Cullinan and Sebokeng. This will make it easier for people to have access to care in their communities.
As we build these facilities we are at the same time paying attention to ensuring that there is a good supply of medicine to these facilities, that they have equipment and that they have adequate numbers of staff.
Last week we issued a circular advising all managers on filling all critical posts budgeted for this year. We have also embarked on an aggressive recruitment and retention drive to attract health professionals into the public services. Our target is to recruit 2 300 nurses, doctors, pharmacists and other allied professionals this year.
We have listened to the concerns by our communities who have said that the nurses at the clinics should be assisted by doctors. We have considered that and have decided to appoint family physicians in our clinics to improve the quality of care.
Other important issues that we must ensure that we pay attention to are the long queues and the attitude of our staff. I am prepared to acknowledge that our health professionals do a lot of good work sometimes under trying circumstances but their good work is undermined by our inability to properly manage the queues. I still do not understand why our systems are manual and paper based when the technology to handle patients is now readily available and is affordable.
It seems to me that unless we place patients at the centre of everything that we do in our clinics and hospitals, we will not be able to change the perception that health professionals in the public sector are cold, callous and do not care about their patients. I know that this is not true but it is a perception that exists and it will only change when we start giving patients a different experience of service and when we embrace a people-centred work ethos.
The opening of this new Hillbrow community health centre should therefore mark a change in the way we do business. This centre is important because it is the only one of its size in the inner city and it serves as a referral facility for Johannesburg Hospital.
If this health centre works well, Johannesburg Hospital will also work much better. I have been told that the maternity and obstetrics unit in this centre is already having a positive impact on the maternity unit at Johannesburg Hospital as pregnant mothers, who have no complications, are not being cared for here.
This centre plays an important role not only in protecting the health of our people but in law enforcement as well. The role of the medico-legal clinic that is based here must be commended for performing good quality forensic examinations on rape survivors. Many rapists and a serial killer have been sent to jail thanks to the professional forensic evidence collected and presented by the staff of our medico-legal clinic. The blood of drunken drivers arrested in Johannesburg over the weekends is tested here and this therefore also helps in removing dangerous motorists from the roads.
It is my wish that the commitment, dedication and passion of the professionals working in this medico-legal clinic can be replicated by all our staff.
Thank you.