Chairperson, if hon Mike Waters could be honest with me, I raised this issue in the portfolio committee. When I was presenting my strategic plan, I said this carelessness must stop. Hon Mike Waters said they agreed with us that members must take responsibility because they will scare people unnecessarily. It was debated in the portfolio committee and I was happy for that support. Please, I don't want people out there to be given the wrong information about these sensitive issues. [Interjections.]
Hon Mike Waters, we actually agree with you on the issue of financial management. Coincidentally, just yesterday we had a national health council, where we adopted a financial management turnaround strategy. We are hopeful it will work. I also made an appointment with the Minister of Finance to call all the MECs for Health and MECs for Finance in all the provinces to sit down and look into these issues. We agree with you wholeheartedly that we will not be able to turn our situation around if we don't look at these issues. We are already implementing information from integrated support teams on this. We hope that it will go very well. We are also implementing the recommendation of the Accountant-General. The Accountant-General has sat with us and showed us some of these weak points.
We have even asked the national chief financial officer to form a team of chief financial officers to look into these issues. We really want to improve that situation. We agree with you wholeheartedly. How can you improve the health care system if the financial management is not improving?
I also need to correct the issue of nursing colleges. It is not this government that closed nursing colleges. This happened in 1985 - and I know because I was a doctor then - when a decision was taken that all nurses must only train at university. It's not us. I stood against it at that time. I'm still against it and we are reversing it. Some of the colleges are already being opened. When I was still MEC of Education in Limpopo, I handed over two colleges to the Department of Health to use them as nursing colleges. This decision was taken in 1985 and it was a wrong one. That is why we are determined and are reversing it. [Applause.] We are definitely going to do so. [Applause.]
The issue of human resources is a global problem. Believe me, the ministers of health in Africa have agreed that in May 2010 we are putting it before the World Health Assembly in Geneva. It must be discussed because it's a very big problem, especially the issue of doctors leaving developing countries for the developed world.
However, I was surprised the other day when I was told that Canada has the same problem. They were saying - you know, it was a very strange statement - if it was not for South Africa, they would have collapsed because their doctors are leaving for the United States. That means it is just an issue of people moving from poorer countries to richer ones, where even Canada loses doctors to the United States and then has to rely on South Africa.
In that same conference of the World Health Organisation, a finger was pointed at me, saying that we are destroying the whole continent because doctors come to South Africa. Therefore, this is an issue that the world needs to look at. In fact, they are definitely looking at it and we are dead sure we will get answers. Thank you, hon Chairperson. [Applause.]