Speech delivered bhy MEC for Health and Welfare, Mr. Seaparo Sekoati on the occasion of Service Excellence Awards Ceremony The Oaks Community Hall

03 September 2004

Programme director
Mayors of local and district Municipalities
Councillors
Local Chief
Government officials
Ladies and gentlemen

The annual service excellence awards ceremonies are steadily but surely growing in both stature and relevance.

Having started earnestly in 1996, this occasion has become an occasion that defines our nature and character, our strength and weakness and our distinct image and reputation.

We have converged here today to say thank you to you and the communities that you serve, to shower you with ululations and praises for a job well done.

During ceremonies of this nature we are accorded the opportunity to recommit ourselves to uphold the moral values of our society, to recommit ourselves to upholding and adhering to the principles of Batho Pele, to lead by example and to serve our communities with pride and dignity.

Many of you are indeed living by these commitments and are therefore being honoured here today. Still many more continue to sacrifice unnoticed yet they do not despair. In their conscience, they have resolved that they are not working for any undue recognition, but for the community to enjoy a better life. This is a challenge that we must all confront and a call we must all heed.

So we are here to salute and honour all of you individually and collectively. You indeed are making a recognisable contribution in the department. We confer unto you our most sincere words of congratulations.

To us you remain beacon of hope and courage, of strength and resilience.

In the midst of a system that is characterised by huge inequities in terms of infrastructure and personnel, with social environment that is characterised by poverty, misery, neglect and disease, you kept the fire burning. So you remain a shining example to all of us.

Huge inequities persist in many of our institutions, which have a negative impact on service delivery.

At the core of these inequities is shortage of personnel. We are aware of the tedious process that has to be followed to fill critical posts in particular. Regulations are made to bring efficiency in government, not to stall such.

Similarly we still experience shortfalls in the issue of transport. This adversely affects the delivery of Primary Health Care at mobile stations. We are of the view that the provision of the Capilanos, equipped with the necessary medical and clinical equipments will lessen the problem and improve the outreach programmes. Already the vehicles have been acquired and are been converted into mobile clinics. Currently the vehicles that we use do not satisfy the status of a mobile clinic. This challenge notwithstanding, our health workers have remained at the forefront of the delivery of quality health care services to our people. You have been doing a good job and we encourage you continue to do so.

The challenge of lack of these facilities is compounded by the lack of communication instruments in many of our clinics and welfare institutions. The final solution of this problem is partnership with the telecommunications institutions, which will provide us with adequate telecommunications system that will connect all our institutions. In the meantime we will continue to look into other alternatives, like providing our clinics with cell phones to enable communication. The challenge in this regard is monitoring so that such instruments are not abused.

Many of our people remain unable to command sufficient resources to satisfy their basic needs. Most of these are women, children, the aged and the disabled, found mainly in rural areas. The adverse effects of these are that these families are vulnerable to diseases such as HIV and Aids, which leads to death.

Our problem is that many of these families tend to rely on assistance from government to lay their beloved ones to rest. This has required of us to provide coffins and other necessities as and when the need arise.

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Our problem is that we are unable to account for such goods. Time and again we are told that the coffins are finished, but nobody knows where they have been taken. This has in many occasions led to many families postponing the funerals of their loved ones, thereby causing and perpetuating the trauma suffered by these families. So it will be required of us to improve our systems and ensure that there is proper monitoring and control in this regard.

Our district is one of the few nodal points identified for development in the province. As a result we have a reasonable number of food parcels to distribute to the deserving families. We are however concerned about the monitoring of the process of identifying the beneficiaries.

Many of the undeserving households have benefited from this discrepancy on our part to the detriment of the deserving ones. This we need to correct as we engage in the next round of providing these food parcels.

As from next year April we will see the introduction of SASSA with a sole mandate of providing social security grants to the beneficiaries under proper conditions. We are proud of the improvement that we have made as the district in the provision of these grants. We have seen an improvement in our turn – around time on this issue. We believe that with the introduction of the agency we will see more improvement.

The divisions along health and welfare lines cannot be tolerated. We are disturbed by the poor coordination of services because of this divide. In some of our institutions officials are being expelled because they are environmental health officers, PHC officers, or Welfare officers. This practice cannot be condoned.

We are aware of the shortage of office space. Many of our welfare officers are accommodated at the premises of the department of justice. It is an irony that this department is keeping our people at their institutions while our own institutions are expelling them. In certain instances the local Chief offers our people accommodation contrary to what we are doing.

We need to look at ways and means of co-operating and sharing these minimal and scarce resources to the advantage of our communities.

We will continue to speed-up our infrastructure development programme so that we finally overcome this problem.

Similarly, in the spirit of co-operative governance we will engage municipalities to reduce incidences of termination of municipal services.

We need to improve on the interaction of our hospitals, Primary Health Care and Welfare managers, for efficiency and effectiveness in referrals between hospitals and clinics and also improve on the doctor visits to clinics so as to reduce the burden at hospitals. We are aware that there were efforts in this district to ensure that there is proper coordination of our services. We urge you to take that process forward. It is a step in the right direction.

In the same vain we congratulate you for the work done at the district management forum that brings together all the government departments in Bohlabela District.

Programme Director,

These and others are the immediate challenges that we must confront and overcome. Some of them are purely administrative problems that must be eliminated. Those that are policy – related will need our collective engagement to refine; and those that are budget - related will require continuous prioritisation and re-prioritisation on our part.

The presentation of these awards and the recognition of excellent service delivery to the deserving recipients take place against this background. Those who are being recognised know surely that had there been sufficient resources and support, they would have done even much more than they have done.

Our success and failure is not measured solely on the joy and jubilation that we exude during functions of this nature, but on the extent to which we have made a meaningful difference in the areas of Home and Community Based Care and Support for HIV and AIDS infected and affected, poverty relief, improved access to social security grants, support to the distressed and marginalized, in curbing and controlling communicable and non-communicable diseases and in the general improvement of health and welfare status of our people.

As we celebrate and rejoice, we must be reminded that the people we serve everywhere base their perception of government on the nature and quality of the services they experience at the hand of public servants. The face and voice of frontline service providers is the face of government.

We are aware that while the greater majority of civil servants are trying to work very hard to deliver quality services to our people, there are always those that are dragging their feet and serve our people without respect and courtesy.

Through these awards we hope to instil a culture of effective, efficient and friendly service delivery in the public service and ensure that the spirit of Batho Pele permeates the entire department.

To our communities, you remain our hope, inspiration and pillars of strength. Let us continue the good work and help each other to bring on board those who still lag behind.

As we enter the second decade of democracy, we welcome and rejoice at the passing of the new Health Act by Parliament. It represents victory to the majority of our poor people.

Some of the salient features of this Act are to regulate and provide a national health system which encompasses both the public and private health service providers, to set out the rights and duties of health care providers, health workers, health establishments and users and protecting, respecting, promoting and fulfilling the rights of the most vulnerable groups such as women, children, the disabled and the aged in terms of their constitutional rights to health care service, safe environment not harmful to their health and well being and to basic nutrition particularly to children.

Our view is that the progressive implementation of this Act, complemented by the adoption of the Health Charter will tackle the major challenges we are facing in the course of achieving a better health and welfare services for all.

I wish you all the best.

Thank you

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