Chairperson, in 1948 the World Health Organisation, WHO, defined health as:
A state of complete physical, mental, and social wellbeing and not merely the absence of disease or medical conditions.
Section 27(1)(a) of our Constitution states that -
Everyone has the right to have access to -
a) health care services, including reproductive health care. ...
Section 27(2) qualifies that -
(2) The state must take reasonable legislative and other measures, within its available resources, to achieve the progressive realisation of each of these rights.
Lastly, section 27(3) instructs all health workers that -
(3) No one may be refused emergency medical treatment.
When we speak of access to health, the challenges which come to mind should be: What is happening in the lives of the ordinary people? On 30 January 2005, Nomhlobo Siyatha died at Site B Clinic in Khayelitsha as a result of severe loss of blood.
At Eikenhof Clinic it is normal to have a regular shortage of medicine and pain killers, on the one hand. On the other hand, Mameli Msindwana, after he was shot by car hijackers, was discharged from a community health care centre in Gugulethu with a punctured lung. This was after he was handed two packets of pain killers and told to come back the following day if he experienced any problems.
To make matters worse, chronically ill patients, the elderly, mothers with small babies and pregnant patients brave icy early morning temperatures, on a daily basis, to secure places in queues outside clinics in every poor area of our country. This is clearly an indication that there are enormous disparities in health status and access to health services in our country.
The health of people depends on a large number of factors, many of which are interconnected, and most of which go considerably beyond access to health services. It stands to reason that health and economic matters are intimately linked in a number of ways. We all know that health is an important contributor to people's ability to be productive and to accumulate the knowledge and skills they need to be productive.
Women in rural areas are still trapped in poverty. These women lack access to their basic human rights and yet they have voted. Women are responsible for heavier household burdens. Gathering and transporting water falls on women and children, a task that can take many hours each day in drought- prone areas.
On average, half an hour is spent collecting water. This includes walking to the source, and sometimes waiting to collect the water and return. Because it takes time to collect water and fuel, the available time for education or other economic and political activities decreases. Already the majority of children in our country who do not attend school are girls.
Travelling long distances to collect water and fuel puts women and girls at risk of violence. Poverty and poor access to health care exacerbates these risks. Women and children are prone to diseases. Twenty nine percent of pregnant women are HIV positive.
South Africa has committed itself to achieving the Millennium Development Goals, MDGs. One of these goals is to reduce the death of mothers by 75% between 1990 and 2015. A report looking at South Africa's MDG progress, which used data from the community survey of 2007, found that 625 mothers died for every 100 000 live births.
In addition to this, the National Committee on Confidential Enquiries into Maternal Deaths found that 3 959 cases of maternal deaths were reported between 2005 and 2007. This was a 20,1% increase from the previous report. This is a far cry from the MDG to reduce maternal mortality by 2015.
About 80% of deaths are of children under five years of age, and the cause is diseases such as HIV and pneumonia. Other factors which contribute to this high mortality rate are lack of access to drinking water and basic sanitation, which lead to diarrhoea; societal inequalities; lack of access to health facilities; and 40% of children having to travel long distances to get to the nearest clinic. [Time expired.] [Applause.]