Hon House Chair, I want to confirm the hon member of the ANC's assertion that as the ANC government we are making a lot of progress in improving the provision of mental health services in the
country. The province of the Northern Cape is leading in this activation of the modern state of the arts psychiatric hospital and we will be supporting them as the national government to make sure that this is a success.
I want to add that it is not only in the Northern Cape where we are focusing but expanding mental health services in other parts of the country as well in terms of improving mental health facilities which in many areas have been neglected while we were focusing on the epidemics of HIV/AIDS and TB. We are now paying a lot of attention to non-communicable diseases and mental health is also receiving a lot of attention.
We are also making sure that there is provision and retraining of mental health professionals such as psychiatrists. Primary health facilities must also have psychiatric services including adding more nurses trained in the field of mental health.
We are taking mental health to the community and making sure that more and more of our people are more conscious
of the threat of mental health ailments. Thank you very much.