Chairperson, the IFP wishes to express its condolences on the death of our Deputy Minister of Health, Dr Sefularo. According to the IFP president's recent statement, Dr Sefularo's death has left the country poorer. "We have lost the considerable talent and experience of a man dedicated to serving South Africa," he said.
The Department of Health is, however, faced with many challenges and priorities. The greatest burden currently facing our public health facilities is that of HIV and TB. We should all accept that not much progress has been made in preventing the spread of tuberculosis, and that South Africa's performance in fighting TB has always been inadequate, resulting in a very low cure rate. We are in danger of not reaching the goal of halving prevalence and death rates by 2015, and of not meeting our millennium development goals.
The government is well aware that it has to double its efforts to deliver better outcomes. We need a change of mindset and a greater sense of urgency to confront the scourge of TB. Programme managers, whose responsibility it is to implement government programmes against TB, and our partners, whose daily work it is to assist us as a country to deliver better outcomes, should not be satisfied only with drafting crisis plans. Everyone should work in partnership to ensure that society gets involved in the fight against TB.
We must promote more testing and greater openness, so that HIV is regarded as being no different from TB, diabetes or hypertension. The IFP regards testing for HIV as important, not so that government knows who is positive or not, but so that when men and women want to conceive children, they know their status.
The Department of Health also needs to work together with the prison command structures to ensure that condoms are provided to inmates in our prisons in order to avert the escalating prevalence of HIV infection. We can run as many HIV programmes as we like, including education, testing and the provision of anti-retroviral drugs to prisoners, but as long as the issue of unprotected sex is not addressed, HIV transmission will continue unchallenged.
The IFP, however, welcomes the implementation of the updated HIV treatment guidelines, which were recently published by the South African National Aids Council, Sanac. This will enable pregnant women, HIV-positive infants and people with HIV and TB to access treatment in the early stages of their infection. There are a million people who are still in need of treatment.
The closure of some nursing colleges by the government, citing funding as a reason, did not assist in the production of nurses. We are calling on government to reopen the training colleges that were closed, to accommodate those who were interested in pursuing a career in nursing.
The government should always bear in mind that poor salaries drive nurses away from the profession and the country. There is a shortage of nurses with post-basic qualifications, experience in intensive-care theatre, and neo-natal intensive care.
Success in the steadily worsening public health services will depend on efficient management and administration. Health districts need to be strengthened and co-ordination between hospitals, clinics and mobiles in rural areas needs to be improved. Monitoring and evaluation of health bodies constitute another critical element in the continuous improvement of our health system.
We want to remind the Minister that, in the state of the nation address, the President spoke about the dire need to improve the health care system. [Time expired.] Thank you.