New health appointments will help, but must be distributed to rural areas
The National Department of Health’s plans to hire an additional 1600 healthcare workers must be commended as a necessary step to ensure accessible healthcare becomes a priority for all. But it must ensure that the staff are distributed evenly between urban and rural areas to ensure that the healthcare needs of underserviced populations are also met.
Yesterday Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi announced that the National Health Council has approved advertisement of 1200 jobs for doctors, 200 nurses and 250 other healthcare professionals at the cost of R1,780 billion. Motsoaledi also announced that they would purchase beds, cots, mattresses, linen and oxygen plants to improve services.
In addition to these, he also named the ten members of the review committee that had been appointed to look at human resources policies in the department to understand which policies were no longer needed or had become obsolete.
He has not specified the terms of reference of the committee or the length of their
tenure.
The Rural Health Advocacy Project argues that the steps taken to appoint a committee to review human resource policies is a critical part of having a public sector that deliver quality services.
But while these moves must be commended, it only addresses one part of the problem. In reviewing these policies, the department must ensure that it also captures the patients’ experience of the healthcare system to considers how this delays their health seeking.
Commenting on the announcements, Rural Health Advocacy Project Executive Director Russell Rensburg said: “We welcome these appointments. The human resources will be critical in aiding the national department of health to achieve its targets in its ambitious campaign to bring 1.1 million people living with HIV into treatment as part of its close the gap campaign along with its end TB campaign which aims to test 5million people for TB.”
“While we welcome this investment and expert groups to review HR policies the missing sense of community involvement in those committees is problematic and needs to be considered,” said Rensburg.
Rensburg said that RHAP looked forward to further announcement from government on how it planned to fill the gap on 15000 frontline healthcare workers who were previously employed through funding from the US government. These posts are important to fill as they have an impact on the country’s HIV and TB services as the country pursues its ambitious plan to close the gap on these two diseases.
For more details contact:
Communications Officer
Palesa Chidi
0786250511
tchidi@rhap.org.za