Question NW692 to the Minister of Health
23 March 2023 - NW692
Hlengwa, Ms MD to ask the Minister of Health
(1)With regard to the R23 million allocated to his department by the National Treasury, what portion of the allocated amount will be dedicated to employ more skilled and/or specialised health workers to capacitate the crumbling health system and the environmental pressures experienced by health workers; (2) whether, considering that the healthcare sector has been affected by load shedding and various clinics around the Republic have raised concerns about their ineffectiveness to carry out their duties as a result, funds will be allocated to providing more power back-up to the affected institutions; if not, why not; if so, by what date?
Reply:
1. I am pleased to inform honourable member that the Department developed and published (in February 2021), a 2030 Human Resources for Health Strategy that serves as a guideline of the Human Resources Agenda for the Public Health sector at various levels of care.
2. The modelling undertaken in the development of the 2030 HRH Strategy, indicates a current shortfall of skilled health professionals in South Africa hence the strategy makes a call for investing in the health workforce to address human resources deficits and inequalities across provinces and between private and public health sectors. However, its implementation has been a challenge due to stringent budgets.
3. To date, with the acknowledgement of the available limited resources in the public service generally, the Department has managed to close the vacancy-rate gap for healthcare related posts to 12.4% and administration positions to 11.80%, respectively, as at the 30 September 2022, across all provinces.
4. The Department further managed to allocate guaranteed funding/budget for the statutory positions of medical internship and community service personnel through the equitable-share and the Human Resources Training Grant (HRTG).
5. Further to the above developments, to address shortages and to ensure the provision of optimal healthcare services, Provincial Departments of Health are implementing plans that amongst others include:
- Prioritisation of the posts in the Annual Recruitment Plan – where funding permits
- Prioritisation of the posts for conditional grant funding
- Filling of replacement posts considered and approved weekly
- Employment of health professionals on contract bases to strengthen capacity
- Prioritization of these contract employees for permanent employment where funding permits at the end of their contracts
- Awarding of bursaries yearly to internal and external candidates to study further in various disciplines where there are shortages
- A dedicated Registrar Programme to train and produce specialists
- Provision of the internship and community service programme.
END.