Chairperson, for many years we searched for a solution in order to unite the fragmented services of our laboratories. We did that because we had promised people a better life, and a better life for all, now. We had promised our people accessibility to services now, not tomorrow.
This Bill shows that the transformation agenda is on track, that it is on course. Transformation never makes for popular talk. Why? Because it mostly brings fears and uncertainties, and has done so, even during the years of discussion about this Bill.
The Free State supports this Bill. We support it because it is going to be cost-effective. It is going to integrate fragmented services.
Just to give hon members a picture of how things were in the Free State, all the hospitals and clinics in the eastern and northern Free State were using the SA Institute for Medical Research, while other services in the southern Free State, in the same province and the same department, were using provincial laboratories. Also, in the big municipalities such as Bloemfontein, they had their small laboratories. This is how fragmented the service was.
I am happy to say that in the Free State all stakeholders were involved, for quite a long time, in trying to alleviate this uncertainty. Hence I am pleading with the Minister for speedy implementation to allay these fears. Yes, we never promised that there would not be one or two who might fall by the wayside, but we said that almost everybody would be accommodated.
My other plea to the Minister is for her please to assist the institutions of higher training in recruiting students, black female students in particular, in the fields of technology, medical technology and haematology, with the aim of creating gender balance. In reality this field is still dominated by males.
My other plea to the Minister and the department relates to the field of epidemiology. One has to be a doctor in order to be able to study epidemiology. We do not dispute that. But because we are talking transformation and are talking about empowering people, it is possible for other sectors in the health field to be taught extensively about epidemiology without lowering any standards.
I congratulate the Minister and the department on the good work done so far. [Applause.]
Mrs T E MILLIN (KwaZulu-Natal): Chairperson, hon members of this House, at the outset may I state that the IFP and KwaZulu-Natal support the Bill in question, bearing in mind the letter and spirit of co-operative governance.
We in KwaZulu-Natal have a unique situation, a government of coalition. Whereas our respective parties do share some similarities, chief of which might be that we both derive a considerable majority of our support from a large black power base, as well as some common aims and objectives with regard to uplifting, empowering and enriching that hitherto oppressed majority, the IFP and KwaZulu-Natal, in coalition with the ANC, and in the GNU at national level, is nevertheless a party with its own policies and goals, by which we seek to facilitate, uplift and empower our oppressed people. This we do by assisting people to help themselves to succeed, while facilitating an enabling environment for an investor-friendly, yet equitable labour market, conducive to a sophisticated, market-driven, free- enterprise economy, by decentralising, by privatising wherever practicable and by devolving maximum powers to the lower levels of government.
Thus, in view of the above, some concerns are noted with regard to the nationalising and centralising of the various institutions in terms of this Bill, particularly at a time when our Government has extensively embarked on a programme of privatisation. Similar moves to centralise continue apace in other spheres of Government policy.
Concerns have also been expressed by my party and others in KwaZulu-Natal, as well as other provincial members in the ruling party and national Government during the NCOP process, regarding the frenetic rate at which some Bills, such as the one before us, are being fast-tracked through the NCOP. The term ``fast-track'' derives primarily from railway transport, whereby various stations on route are eliminated to speed up passage from point A to point Z. In applying that principle to the fast-tracking of Bills, one could contend that a bypassing or curtailment of the democratic consultative process, as a consequence of fast-tracking, might well lead, in the likely event of this Bill becoming law once passed in the National Assembly, to certain constitutional challenges and concomitant amendments. Labour legislation is a current case in point.
May one ask whether or why it is necessary to centralise under one umbrella the bodies contemplated in this Bill? Is this not a case of attempting to fix something that ain't broke in the first place? And, do the unions not have valid concerns, in that many unionised workers would be retrenched when too many jobs are already being shed?
The time does not permit further comment, save to say that notwithstanding the concerns raised on behalf of my party, the majority coalition partner in KwaZulu-Natal, as stated earlier, in a spirit of co-operative governance, we give our support herewith to the Bill before this House. [Time expired.] [Applause.]
Mrs L JOHNSON (KwaZulu-Natal): Madam Chair, thank you for affording me the opportunity to participate in this debate. KwaZulu-Natal welcomes and supports the National Health Laboratory Service Bill as amended. I want to place on record that as we were deliberating on this Bill in our portfolio committee we never had serious concerns. We went through the Bill until it came to the NCOP and we were briefed on the Bill.
I would like to quote section 27 of our Constitution: (1) Everyone has the right to have access to -
(a) health care services, including reproductive health care; (b) sufficient food and water; and (c) social security, including, if they are unable to support themselves and their dependants, appropriate social assistance.
(2) The state must take reasonable legislative and other measures, within its available resources, to achieve the progressive realisation of each of these rights.
We come from a history of fragmentation, duplication and maldistribution of health services in this country, which were not accessible to the majority of our people, in particular those residing in rural areas. The National Health Laboratory Service Bill seeks to establish a single, national public entity to provide public health laboratory services in the country. The object of the service, among others, is to provide cost-effective and efficient health laboratory services to all public-sector health care providers.
The Bill will ensure that laboratory services are not urban-biased, but can be made available to rural areas as well. As was mentioned earlier by speakers before me, there are other provinces that do not have the service, and we hope that the provinces will, for the first time, have access to the laboratory services.
The Bill will also empower the Minister to accelerate the restructuring and transformation of the public health sector laboratory services in order to make them part of a single, national public entity.
We also appreciate the work done over the years by the SA Institute for Medical Research, the National Institute for Virology, the National Centre for Occupational Health and all provincial health laboratory services that have been providing this service.
Once more, we wish to congratulate the department and the Minister on bringing this Bill before us, and we are looking forward to its addressing the inequalities of the past. [Applause.]