| The Sedibeng Health department held its district-wide Health Summit at the Quest Conference centre in Vanderbijlpark recently. Held annually, the regional summit evolves from a similar provincial health summit held by the Gauteng Department of Health (GDoH).
Opening the summit, MMC for health and community safety Cllr Tsokolibane gave a brief socio-economic overview of the region, Sedibeng.
According to her, the population currently stands close to a million, at 918 325 people, with almost half (43 percent) of the economically-active population being unemployed.
The majority of the people in the region, over eighty percent, reside at Emfuleni and the rest is scattered in the predominantly farmlands of Lesedi and the Midvaal locals. Access to water, sanitation and waste removal is all above 97 percent across the region.
On the supply-side of health care facilities, the MMC states that the region has three hospitals; two are located at Emfuleni, one in Lesedi and the Midvaal currently has none.
There are 32 clinics in the region, 21 located in the densely populated Emfuleni locality, seven in Lesedi and the remainder in Midvaal. Three mobile clinics are located in each of the local municipalities.
Regarding the challenges and achievements of the region health-wise, the MMC outlined some of the strides relating mainly to greater integration of the regional health activities. These include the integration of the fully functioning District Health Technical Team as well as the TB Forum.
On the drug management side of health, greater co-ordination has been achieved resulting in a two percent reduction in drug stock-outs, the MMC reveals. Core health services are rendered at ninety seven percent of the health care facilities across the region. The school health services have been strengthened through promotional campaigns, she added.
Even though the region has achieved greater integration of its health activities, there are still teething problems regarding integration with the province. Some of the issues lacking in the province-district integration includes joint planning and budgeting between province and municipalities. These include the disparities in health resources between the two tiers of governance, reveals MMC Tsokolibane.
Despite the fact that the region faces greater mental illness challenges than any part of the province as was revealed by provincial health MEC Brian Hlongwa, the region still faces challenges in this field.
According to MMC Tsokolibane the region still faces the challenge of implementing and rolling-out Mental Health Services that are accompanied by the necessary planning and budgeting processes.
Another challenge facing the region is what the MMC terms "provincialisation" of health services. As the term implies, these challenges relates to greater abdication of municipal functions to the province.
Having heard the MMC’s comments on socio-economic and health make-up of the region, the summit ensued with a presentation of papers by various speakers from both the local and provincial governments, including the non-governmental organisations present.
Mrs M Dichabe representing the province's health department made a brief presentation on the department's strategic goals with particular emphasis on the information technologies requirements of the province. She emphasised that the province is open to discussions with the district and locals on budgeting and planning.
Having spoken, it was for Mr C Karstens, also from the province, to give detail on the implementation of the new Health Information System (Soarin Medsuite System). According to him, implementation of the system is in line with the GDoH strategic objective to invest in smart technologies that will enable employees to work smart.
Some of the core outcomes of smart technologies include the integration of information systems to reduce queues at the health institutions as well as proper control of the medication stock.
Karstens revealed that an agreement has been reached with the Sedibeng district municipality on issues relating to access to municipal health sites for the effective implementation of the information systems in the region.
Touching on the most pressing challenge of the “brain-drain” in the health sector, Tebogo Lebodi made a presentation on the progress made since the Human Resource Indaba.
He gave background information regarding the motives for the sitting of the Indaba as well as the outcomes of its deliberations. Central to the debates at the indaba has been the high levels of people leaving the profession for greener pastures abroad.
To counter the skills exodus, the indaba set-up at least fifteen commissions that decided on the strategies to counter the scourge, echoed Lebodi.
At the end of the Indaba, an eight-point plan was presented dealing with issues such as the mobility within the sector, pipeline plans for health workers as well as convergence between public and private health care among other issues that were dealt with. |
