HIV/AIDS

The U.S. Embassy in Pretoria is seeking an individual for the position of Public Health Specialist, Provincial Liaison Lead in the PEPFAR Office.

Basic Function of Position:

FIVE years ago, delegates to the African National Congress’s elective conference in Polokwane agreed on a list of measures to improve South Africa’s health system, encompassing both ideological positions and broad policy goals.

Progress made in implementing the 17 health resolutions they passed has been sketchy.

While there have been advances in tackling HIV/AIDS and a formal policy on National Health Insurance (NHI) is on the table, there is no sign of the government implementing the party directive to regulate prices in the private sector or to get the country’s public hospitals up to par.

Based on the principle that social accountability is enabled through participation by an empowered civil society that demands efficiency and transparency, the three-year journey of a South African Budget Monitoring and Expenditure Tracking (BMET) project demonstrates that citizen involvement in economic governance is both possible and progressing.

Conducted by the Centre for Economic Governance and AIDS in Africa (CEGAA) in partnership with the Treatment Action Campaign, the BMET project is funded by the Open Society Institute - New York (OSI-NY), Open Society Foundation for South Africa (OSF-SA) and International Budget Partnership (IBP).

(Five-year contract appointment with possible extension)

(Ref: TGB14/411/1112)

Government’s HIV/AIDS programme is bearing fruit, with fewer deaths now than in 2006. And older people are now dying, not young people in the prime of their lives, according to the Census released yesterday.

The majority of the deaths recorded by the Census were due to natural causes, with just 9.6% of them attributed to unnatural causes. However, the number of people dying in South Africa has decreased since 2006. Statisticians believe that the majority of deaths prior to 2006 were related to the AIDS epidemic and that the onset of the government’s AIDS treatment programme has reduced the mortality figures.

Cervical cancer is the leading cause of cancer death among women in southern Africa, but new research reveals that governments’ attempts to address the disease have been inadequate. Access to cervical cancer screening services is minimal, few countries in the region have policies on the disease, and treatment remains a major challenge.

It is one of the most scenic regions in the Western Cape and home to some of the province’s wealthy, but this means nothing to many residents of Eden district as they battle with social ills and poor access to health care.

About 85 percent of the region’s population have no medical insurance and depend solely on public health care for services.

The district – which includes the southern Cape towns of George, Mossel Bay, Knysna, Plettenberg Bay, Oudtshoorn and parts of the little Karoo – is home to more than 500 000 people.

PURPOSE:

Health Systems Trust wishes to appoint 132 Health Systems Strengthening facilitators to support interventions at sub district, facility and community level in support of the South Africa Sustainable Response to HIV and AIDS (SA SURE) project. SA SURE aims to strengthen local capacity to provide sustainable HIV and TB-related care and treatment services, within each of the sub districts listed below. This is a one year, fixed-term contract position, renewable based on funding availability and performance.

THE Treasury is planning to increase the amount of money available to the public-health sector in next year’s budget, despite the tight fiscal environment.

The medium-term budget policy statement shaved R1.3bn off the total noninterest government expenditure allocated to the current fiscal year, bringing it down to R878.7bn, and left the projected budget for the next two years unchanged at R953bn and R1.03-trillion, respectively.

Many sectors have been forced to make savings, but provincial health departments were spared as the effect on service delivery would have been too great, said the Treasury’s chief director for health and social development, Dr Mark Blecher.