Minister of health, Aaron Motsoaledi, was reported by Sapa as stating that health is a public good and could not be just left cannot be left to the dictates of the market. He was speaking at a health conference where he announced that his department was about to improve public services in certain area and increase health staff.
The state, he said, knew that the public service was short of professional doctors and was to do something about it. His
department planned to pay private sector doctors to work a certain number of hours at state clinics.
A thousand South African school leavers with the right passes were also being sent to Cuba to train as medical doctors which represented a massive increase from the present allocation currently sent.
Motsoaledi said the state would spend R1.4bn on refurbishing approximately one hundred nursing colleges across the country and said earlier decisions to close a number of such colleges had been the wrong decision.
On preventative medicine, minister Motsoaledi said his department “would try and improve hygiene, infection control, long queues in hospitals, drug shortages and the safety of staff.” A health ombudsman was to be appointed to create a platform for the public to lodge complaints.
He concluded that there were plans to introduce a school health system which would deal with immunisation, the use of drugs and alcohol, and teenage pregnancy.
