Democratic Nursing Organisation of South Africa

Press release

08 March 2017

The Democratic Nursing Organization of South Africa (DENOSA) in Gauteng welcomes and appreciates the budget speech presented by the MEC of finance in Gauteng yesterday.

As a nursing union we were picketing outside the legislature during the delivery of this speech, highlighting that we need more funds to be allocated in health to deal with the health challenges in particular the aging and dilapidating infrastructure and health demands in the province.

We note that the budget represents an increase from R37.4 billion to R40.2 billion with a focus on the following areas: 

• R3.7 billion set aside in 2017/18 to prevent and reduce the burden of communicable diseases and implement anti-retroviral therapy (ART) programme including projects such as the test and treat and TB screening and treatment;

• R9 billion allocated in 2017/18 to enhance service delivery outcomes in district hospitals, community health clinics and community based centres;

• R990 million is allocated to the EMS programme in 2017/18. This amount caters for the EMS professionals and the provision of bursaries to employees and non-employees;

• R893.8 million has been set aside over the next three years to fund the provision of effective and efficient mental health care services in the province.

  We are happy with the focus of the Finance MEC on health. However, we are sceptical of the capacity of the Gauteng Department of Health to plan and utilise these allocated funds accordingly, because in the current financial year they have underspent on infrastructure and the shortage of medications remains a challenge in some areas.

  The commitment made by MEC Creecy in the last budget speech to employ more health practitioners and fill vacant posts was not achieved adequately by Gauteng Health and this is not progressive for the programme of Gauteng government.

   

  We are therefore making a call to Gauteng Treasury to babysit and capacitate Gauteng Health to utilise its funds effectively in the interest of citizens of Gauteng who are dependent on the public health system and to realise the implementation of the national health insurance (NHI) as Gauteng has pilot sites in Tshwane.

   

  As DENOSA Gauteng, we are happy about the entire budget delivered and we think it’s in the right direction to deal with challenges in the province and grow our economy and especially the efforts made to improve our infrastructure which will result in a conducive environment for growing the economy, growing business and create work opportunities to deal with triple challenge of poverty, unemployment and inequality.

   

  DENOSA Gauteng congratulates the MEC of finance and makes a commitment as a stakeholder in health to work with government to ensure it achieves its objectives through our role of monitoring government in the implementation of policies and commitments made.

   

  End

   

  Issued by the Democratic Nursing Organisation of South Africa (DENOSA) in Gauteng

  For more information, contact:

  Simphiwe Gada, DENOSA Gauteng Provincial Chairperson.

  Mobile: 072 563 1923