Executive

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The turn-around strategy implemented by the Gauteng health department is helping to solve poor financial management, said MEC Ahm Papo.

Speaking at the provincial branch launch of a medical services provider, Papo said the department faced a number of problems from 2009.

These included management instability, poor financial management, shortage of essential drugs, inadequate emergency medical services, and poorly maintained equipment due to contractual disputes and non-payment of suppliers.

"We owned up to these problems and developed a turn-around strategy (TAS) 2012-2014 to ensure the department moved away from organisational decline and collapse of service delivery," said Papo.

Cancer survivors gathered in central Cape Town yesterday to protest and raise awareness of the challenges faced by patients in South Africa, saying they are fed up with among others broken radiation machines and poor treatment access.

“We will overcome,” the group of cancer survivors and supporters sang during the picket in front of St George’s cathedral in Cape Town. Dressed in black and waving placards, the group wanted to raise awareness of the challenges faced by cancer patients and advocate to get cancer on the political agenda.

High schools in KwaZulu-Natal must immediately begin discussing how to provide pupils with access to condoms and how to facilitate voluntary HIV/Aids testing.

The time for debate on these contentious matters is over, according to provincial Education MEC Senzo Mchunu.

It is a matter of “how” rather than “should or should not” that schools had to figure out.

GAUTENG’s treasury and an "administrative team" made up of medical and supply management professions are intervening to turn around the province’s health department, which has been struggling for years to build and maintain hospitals and pay its bills.

The Gauteng provincial executive committee has invoked section 18 of the Public Finance Management Act for the intervention and insisted on Monday that this was not the same thing as being placed under administration.

Nurses are quitting the public health service, citing poor security at state hospitals as one of their reasons, according to the president of the Democratic Nursing Organisation of SA (Denosa), Dorothy Matebeni.

The problem was also discouraging young people from pursuing a career in nursing, she said yesterday after the organisation’s executive committee meeting at the weekend.

She noted with concern the continuing attacks on health-care workers in the workplace.

She called on the Department of Health to develop a “clear programme” for safety and security in public hospitals.

THE public and private healthcare sectors are coming together in an initiative in which private companies will donate millions to fund the training of doctors and nurses and help improve public services.

This "health compact" will be announced on Thursday by Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi.

The public health sector is under-staffed, under-resourced and poorly managed, but about 84% of the population depend on it compared with 16% who have access to private healthcare.

Another day. Another story about state patients dying and suffering. Another distressed letter from desperate health workers. Another call for action and accountability from civil society. Another statement from government. Another day in Gauteng.

A week has hardly gone by in the past year without a media report detailing a horror in a Gauteng hospital or clinic.

Main Purpose of the Job:       
To organize and manage all aspects of the running and growth of the People’s Health Movement of South Africa (PHM-SA) throughout the country. This includes networking, resource mobilization, managing the PHM email list, and the co-ordination of PHM meetings and activities.  This work will include implementing the  FOS Socialist Solidarity funded project to raise awareness and involvement in the process to the National Health Insurance as part of a Right to Health Campaign (the FOS project is a joint initiative between PHM-SA and Alternative Information Development Centre).
 
Priority Performance Areas