Hon Chair, "a long and healthy life for all South Africans" is one of the outcomes that the Department of Health aims to fulfil, and we all want to support such an ideal. But over the years, it seems the health situation in our country has seemingly grown worse by the day. Instead of improvements in the state of health care, many communities, especially in the rural areas, have been neglected and lack basic services due to every South African.
We hear of plans to improve the health care system, yet we read about hospitals being closed, machines sitting idle in many clinics and the severe lack of doctors in many hospitals and clinics in areas outside the cities.
The promises given by the department seem to revolve around too much idealism, with plans in place to change the fabric of our health system, but at the same time, seemingly ignoring the true state of our health care system in our society. The extreme lack of leadership within the provincial and municipal health departments has ensured that what the national department promises is taken with a grain of salt by communities.
The plans put in place by the department do not translate into concrete plans on the ground, mainly owing to the local health departments not being held accountable for the lack of services to the communities. Those who do try to provide services usually fail, because the provincial and national departments do nothing to assist them with equipment or enough staff to service the needs of their communities.
The department desires to accelerate the delivery of health infrastructure during 2013-14, but the only problem with this desire is that very many clinics and hospitals are in a state of disrepair, with some wards needing to be demolished because they are not fit for human habitation. In some of these hospitals, ventilation is so poor that there is ...