Chairperson, hon Minister, hon members, let me begin by expressing my most heartfelt condolences to the family of Comrade Molefi Sefularo and acknowledge with gratitude the significant contribution he made in health. May we all continue with the work he started.
Chairperson, an extract from the book Life and Flowers by Maurice Maeterlinck should inspire all of us to effect social change. It says:
Let us listen only to the experience that urges us on; it is always higher than that which throws or keeps us back. Let us reject all the counsels of the past that do not turn us towards the future.
This means that we need to change our mindset from the effects of the past towards what we see as our future, in order to achieve the vision of a better life for all.
I rise to participate in an event of great importance because of the impact that the outcome of this debate will have on our people. This is not a process to be taken lightly by MPs, as the overwhelming majority of our people have entrusted the ANC to be its vanguard movement.
Budget debates afford parliamentarians the opportunity to reflect on the performance of the Department of Health during the period under review. However, it must also give us pause to reflect on our own performance as parliamentarians and for me as an ANC member.
This organisation has a proud history of fighting for the disadvantaged and oppressed and we must do everything possible not to violate that history. Millions of our people placed their faith in the ANC-led government. Therefore, it is incumbent upon us to ensure that the delivery of services required by our people happens.
Health is one portfolio that is always controversial and will remain so for the foreseeable future. While we have succeeded in many areas, we need to increase our efforts in bringing health care closer to the people, especially in rural and remote communities.
The quality of care and achieving better health outcomes should be given priority. However, this depends on people. The shortage of skills is well known, but we need to ensure the retention of the skills we have.
It is essential that we improve the working conditions of health workers and provide opportunities to study further. Government should also provide incentives to attract health workers to work in remote or rural areas. Clearly, this presents a challenge that cannot be resolved overnight.
Another critical area is the support that community involvement provides through home-based care and mobilising communities during crises. We need to strengthen this partnership with communities and also improve the management and monitoring of these workers.
To achieve social and economic justice, government has to intervene and act against corruption, implement measures to reduce waste and increase efficiency. A key challenge in achieving social justice is the eradication of poverty, its related social ills and health challenges.
Chairperson, one way of effecting social change is to deal with the issue of human resources. This prevailing challenge for the health sector is considered to be reaching a major crisis. The problem is not only the shortage of health professionals but also the disparity of distribution between provinces. This disparity also exists between the private and public health sectors. This creates a serious challenge for the community to meet the millennium development goals but it also creates a challenge to improve the health system's effectiveness.
South Africa followed the global trend of focusing on primary health care to ensure health care for all our people. This meant the reorientation and realignment of the health workforce - a huge challenge in itself, but necessary.
Adding to this challenge is the ever-increasing burden of diseases - exacerbated by the impact of HIV and Aids. A change in lifestyle and behaviour is obviously necessary, and therefore education is critical to create awareness of preventing lifestyle diseases. This can be the start for all of us to change within ourselves and leave behind that legacy of experiences that holds us hostage to the past and prevents us from effecting social change in a meaningful way.
For people to achieve optimal health, they have to exercise greater control over all aspects of their lives. In this regard, it is critical to let go of the pain of the past but carry on learning from the lessons of the past.
The strategic plan, in facilitating capacity development within the health system, indicates the following: Pushing the national human resources plan for health by March 2012; introducing mid-level health workers and community health workers; strengthening human resource planning in the provinces; increasing the number of student clinical associates from 99 to 180 by 2012-13; finalising the policy on community health workers by March 2011; increasing the number of emergency-care technicians; recruiting health professionals through agreements with other countries that have an excess of such professionals.
We lose many health professionals to the private sector. This is why the envisaged public-private partnership and the introduction of a National Health Insurance are so important. The involvement of the private sector in providing health care is critical. As we know, there are considerable resources in the private sector that will assist with the demand for health care. This will close the "shortage of skills" gap and, with the introduction of the Occupational Specific Dispensation, should assist with the retention of staff.
However, it is still extremely difficult to employ health professionals to work in the remote and rural areas where most of our people live. We have to find ways of making it attractive for health professionals to work in those areas. Currently, we seem to attract only foreign health professionals to those areas.
As parliamentarians, our role is twofold: we legislate and we exercise oversight over government and its related institutions. Engaging with the Budget is one way of exercising oversight through which one takes stock of the outcomes of the previous year's operations.
A key element to providing services to our people is to foster a culture of public service as a means to achieve our transformatory objectives that must result in a better life for all. In other words, Batho Pele speaks about the Budget linking to the outputs.
The Patients' Rights Charter outlines the rights of patients as well as their responsibilities. As parliamentarians we must ensure that this is prominently displayed in the health facilities in our constituencies. This forms part of ensuring that the rights of patients are not violated as well as our ongoing campaign of building a caring nation. The service provided by professionals should be of the same standard that they demand for themselves.
Through these mechanisms and interaction with our communities, we can effect the social change we need in order to advance to that better life for all. The world is astounded by our country's achievements and stable democracy. This did not happen by accident; the ANC continues to demonstrate that its core values are based on democracy.
Not enough can be said about developing a healthy nation that results in a prosperous nation and country. To achieve optimal outcomes, it is important that careful planning is done to maximise the performance of our health system. Human resource planning for health has gained international prominence, spurred by the extensive international migration of health professionals. Planning is considered a vital activity but it is important to note that the task of health workforce planning is complicated by many global diseases and challenges. It is also essential for any organisation to ensure that its human resources are capable of meeting its operational objectives. [Interjections.] [Time expired.] I support the Budget. [Applause.]