Chairperson, hon Minister and Deputy Minister, hon Members of Parliament, ladies and gentlemen, let me start by saying the ANC supports the budget.
Accelerated work must be undertaken to further revitalise and improve our public health care system and to attend to the intense pressures and challenges facing health services. Intervention must include appointing qualified personnel and improving infrastructure, such as rebuilding dilapidated clinics and hospitals.
I want to talk about noncommunicable disease. When we are hungry, we buy food to eat, and, if we are looking for entertainment, we watch movies or go to our friends and chill with some bottles. When we fall ill, we have no choice but to go to a doctor but, unlike food and movies, no one really enjoys getting sick. There is wisdom in the old saying, "prevention is better than cure."
To improve the health status of the population and achieve the health- related Millennium Development Goals 4, 5 and 6, which are to "Reduce Child Mortality", "Improve Maternal Health", and combat TB, malaria and other communicable diseases, it has become more urgent and critical to intervene to reduce child mortality and maternal mortality rates, which are unacceptably high. The ANC government is working hard to ensure an uptake in the prevention of mother-to-child transmission, PMTCT, of HIV, the main cause of child mortality.
Strengthening community organisation and mobilisation is central to ANC-led government efforts to improve the health status of all South Africans. The ANC government will continue with existing campaigns and develop new ones, whilst overseeing, implementing and monitoring them.
This is part of raising awareness and informing the public about changing harmful practices and adopting protective practices, including campaigns against tobacco, alcohol and substance abuse. There are also campaigns to mobilise the community to adopt a healthy diet and exercise, encourage pregnant women to use the prevention of mother-to-child transmission treatment and encourage people to get tested for HIV, high blood pressure and diabetes.
The existing national drug policy and strategy are undergoing review so as to support effective implementation of the National Health Insurance, NHI, and strengthen the managerial and technical capacity of government.
The government should conduct a feasibility survey for the establishment of a state-owned pharmaceutical company. Government will continue to invest in research and development in the health sector, including infant mortality research, HIV prevention technologies, health status surveys and the development of new medicines and indigenous knowledge systems.
The ANC has an enormous responsibility, as the leader of society and as the only organisation capable of uniting all the people of South Africa around a common vision, to encourage people to adopt a healthy lifestyle. I am confident that we can control obesity in South Africa. Obesity is the second most important cause of global mortality and morbidity after smoking, and both of them are preventable.
The pursuit of household and national food security is a constitutional mandate of the ANC government. We have to create an environment which ensures that there is adequate food available to all, now and in the future, and that hunger is eradicated.
The ANC is already putting in place an emergency food relief programme on a mass scale in the form of food assistance projects, like soup kitchens, to the poorest households and communities. This programme will be linked to existing mass mobilisation activities on the ground.
I therefore call upon government and our social partners to absorb and apply cost-effective interventions at the individual and community levels with a view to addressing preventable diseases. Actions recommended include embarking on methodical awareness campaigns, spreading the word diligently and sensitising people to the importance of a healthy diet and exercise; building capacity for the detection, prevention and treatment of overweight, high blood pressure, diabetes, ulcers, asthma and cancer; and implementing and scaling up early detection and interventions, and providing adequate treatment, including paying attention to patients' wellbeing and spiritual support.
All members of society should protect their own health by preventing the aforementioned diseases, seeking the right information on risk factors, avoiding occupational and environmental hazards, and taking part in decision-making on all issues that affect their health and that of their families.
A lack of knowledge is leading to the causes of chronic diseases. Public education and awareness is critical in our fight against chronic disease. I want to encourage all South Africans to go for regular health screening. Our government is encouraging people to know their health status by being tested for blood pressure, glucose levels, cholesterol, etc.
I am heartened by the fact that the ANC-led government is concerned about the impact of breast cancer on females. Through the various initiatives undertaken since the dawn of democracy in South Africa, we have made significant progress in the fight against breast cancer. Unsafe food causes many acute and lifelong diseases, ranging from diarrhoeal diseases to various forms of cancer.
In health, progress has been recorded in the expansion of free primary health care. We have expanded health infrastructure, including the building and upgrading of 1 600 clinics and 18 new hospitals. Many public hospitals have been revitalised and refurbished.
We have increased the antiretroviral treatment roll-out programme with more than 480 000 people having been enrolled. There have been a number of successful initiatives to combat smoking to. The ANC government is expanding access to food production schemes in rural and semi-urban areas in order for them to grow their own food with the implementation of food gardens, and by providing tractors, fertilisers and pesticides.
Other measures support existing community schemes which utilise land for food production at schools, health facilities and churches, and in urban and traditional authority areas.
In summing up, I would like to emphasise that there is a great need to raise awareness of the importance and benefit of physical activity among the population. We must educate all South Africans by conducting physical activity programmes, and build capacity among individuals to engage in physical activity. We must create a supportive environment that facilitates participation in physical activity.
I would also like to congratulate the Minister, the Deputy Minister and the director-general, who are heading in the right direction with this department. Thank you. [Applause.]