QUESTIONS FROM AD HOC COMMITTEE 14 JUNE 2004

FOR HEALTH TO THE NORTHERN CAPE DOH

QUESTIONS

ANSWERS

  • What criteria do you to determine which disabled people receive free health care
  • No criteria for disabled to receive services. We use existing criteria used by the Welfare Department
  • 4.8% of the total populace are disabled – per information from social services
  • What stock control systems do you use?
  • Stock control system works well in the big hospitals, but in clinics there are still problem, health workers order drugs at the last minute
  • What is your immunisation coverage?
  • About 90%
  • What is the distribution of mental health personnel in the provinces
  • 1 psychiatrists exists in N. Cape
  • Occupational therapist are appointed n different districts, but psychologists are difficult to get hold of
  • How far are you with roll out of the Comprehensive Plan
  • N. Cape has not yet started to roll-out, working together with the NDoH to ensure a sustainable programme
  • Supply of ARVs is a problem currently, 3TC has run out in the entire country
  • Why do you have one crew member in the EMS
  • Yes, we still do. But we are training 200 EMS patient
  • Air Force has agreed to have a partnership with the N. Cape DoH
  • How many mobile clinics in Northern Cape
  • N. Cape does have mobile clinics, but N. Cape prefer to build visiting points
  • Can you separate acute from chronic medication, and tell us about the supply of each?
  • We do know the numbers of our chronic patients and their medicine is not difficult. But acute medication is a problem in terns of supply
  • Why are you training only 5 PHC Nurses when there are no doctors in rural areas
  • We will be training 300 in the Northern Cape
  • In which are groups are HIV infections reducing
  • Decrease is still general – but between 19-25 this is where we see a maturing epidemic with less infections
  • What governance structures do you have?
  • Hospital boards have a new role. It is a must that we have hospital boards.
  • N. Cape has the smallest management structures at Provincial level but we are improving governance at both levels
  • How have you transferred lessons fro, Kimberly hospital to the rest of the province
  • New managers for some district hospitals and have been linked to Kimberly hospital
  •  
    • We are trying to improve our budgets ad effective. We have developed a cost-centre approach. This has had positive spin offs

     

    QUESTIONS

    ANSWERS

    • Congratulations on training auxiliary workers
  • Yes, we take general assistants are train them as auxiliary nurses, and their level of morale is very high
  • Salaries of nursing educators have been elevated to that of a unit manager
  • Community-based psychiatry
  • First challenge was to increase number of nurses with a post-basic qualification in the community, then psychiatrists visits
  • Do you have organisations such as Love Life programmes
  • One LL centre in Colesburg exist, and N. Cape has developed 3 youth health centres of its own
  • How are your Termination of Pregnancy services
  • I did not put in a slide, but information shows that illegal abortions are still happening
  • We have explained that parents do not have to give permission for you to have TOP
  • TOP centres exist in every town
  • How will you address the issue of cross-boundary patient flows
  • North West and Free State pose problems to us with regard to cross-boundaries
  • We are see more numbers from their side
  • We are negotiating with NW to share costs
  • Do you have a TB DOTS programme
  • We need to train Community Health Workers to eliminate disparity – one CHW must be able to do VCT, DOTs, home-based care
  • How do you improve the efficiency of your management systems
  • Need to improve systems internally and externally
  • We have introduced cost-centre management approach and stock control approach
  • We are training our managers in all respects, we are delegating to the HR functions, labour relations and finance
  • Comment on outsourcing of services
  • Outsourcing means we are admitting that we cannot manage, running service internally is cheaper,
  • We terminated the contract of Sekunjalo for the supply of medication