With elections within earshot, our reporters asked political parties with the most representation in Makhanda (Grahamstown) for their health manifestos. In other words, what are their policies on healthcare and what do they plan to change should they be elected. We approached the ANC, DA and EFF; the EFF failed to provide a response by the time of publication.
ANC Health Manifesto
Provided by Mthuthuzeli Matyumza, ANC Subregion Chair for Makana
In our next term we will do the following on Health; implement a National Health Insurance to provide quality healthcare free at the point of use, improve [the]quality of the public health sector as the backbone for South Africa’s unified national health system, and screen an additional 2 million people for TB and treat those with diseases.
The Health sector has reactivated programmes to ensure that the District Health System (DHS) is functional in all provinces, as a practical step of strengthening Primary Health Care (PHC); gazetted the White Paper on the National Health Insurance (NHI) for public comment in December 2015.
NHI Pilot sites have been activated to prepare the health system for implementation of NHI; and work on the establishment of the NHI Fund has been progressing steadily and the White Paper on NHI has been finalised waiting for endorsement by Cabinet.
The sector has performed extremely well in its programmes against HIV and AIDS resulting in fewer deaths and increased life expectancy, reduced overall mortality in the country; dramatic reduction of maternal mortality; considerable drop in mother-to-child transmission; reduction in child and infant mortality and a decrease in TB mortality due to successful ARV treatment.
The sector has instituted game changing interventions such as GeneXpert testing and has evidence of TB disease burden declining. It is however concerned about TB remaining the primary underlying cause of death in South Africa. We shall focus mainly on injecting more energy into implementation in the ANC and in government, where government serves as the ANC delivery tool or mechanism.
Dr. Aaron Motsoaledi, Minister of Health highlighted the following during the Health Dept Budget Vote 2018/19, in Parliament; “We will intensify efforts to improve the health of our people, particularly in the context of the devastating impact of the AIDS epidemic and the emergence of other diseases. As South Africans we must never accept as permanent or irreversible our status as the country with the world’s biggest HIV epidemic. We need to take decisive steps to bring an end to the epidemic through systematically implementing the 90-90-90 strategy, which will entail, among other things, the addition of 2 million more people to our antiretroviral treatment programme”.
Improving Healthcare in Frontier constituency
Provided by Jane Cowley, DA Shadow MEC for Health
The main challenges facing the healthcare system in the Eastern Cape are lack of capacity at middle and top management levels due to cadre employment, lack of infrastructure maintenance, understaffing in almost all hospitals and clinics, and an almost completely collapsed EMS service.
The Democratic Alliance has introduced many effective measures to improve health care in the Western Cape over the past ten years, which has resulted in the life expectancy of Western Cape residents increasing by 8 years.
In Makana Municipality, the first step to improving health care in hospitals and clinics is to ensure that they are sufficiently staffed with COMPETENT nursing staff and effective managers.
Secondly, a rural patient transport system should be established to serve the rural communities better and faster. This has proven very successful in the Western Cape, where over 230 pick up points have been established and are regularly serviced.
Thirdly we would address the drastic shortage of ambulances, as currently there are less than one third of the required number of ambulances operating across the province. This continues to result in unnecessary deaths.
Also, clinic hours should be extended in some facilities so that working people can access them after working hours. This has proven very successful where it has been implemented in DA run municipalities.
Lastly, a Chronic Dispensary Unit should be established at various sites other than clinics, so that stable patients can access their medication without having to queue at the clinic every time they require meds.
https://www.grocotts.co.za/2019/05/03/tac-peoples-health-manifesto-deep-cap/
https://www.grocotts.co.za/news/saelections-2019-in-makana/
