Tag: elections 2024

Categories : Healthcare Politics and RegulationsTags :

Who will be SA’s Minister of Health in the New Cabinet?

On By ModernMedia

By Marcus Low

ANC President Cyril Ramaphosa, with Minister of Health, Dr Joe Phaahla and his deputy Dr Sibongiseni Dhlomo, during the signing into law of the National Health Insurance Bill. (Photo: @MYANC/Twitter)

After the ANC received less than 41% of the votes in last week’s national elections, negotiations are now underway that will determine how and by who South Africa is governed. Ministerial posts, including the country’s top health job, might be on the negotiating table. Spotlight considers the candidates for the post of South Africa’s Minister of Health.

For most of the last 30 years, it went almost without saying that the country’s Minister of Health would be drawn from the ranks of the ANC. But given the dramatic decline in the party’s electoral fortunes and the consequent pressure to enter into coalitions or other deals, the pool of realistic candidates for the post of health minister might this year be larger than before.  

The President has the prerogative to appoint any members of the National Assembly as ministers, whether or not they are of the same party as the President. The President can also at his or her discretion appoint two ministers who are not members of parliament. It is also relatively trivial for a party to ask a Member of Parliament (MP)  to stand down and to have another sworn in, as happened with Minister of Electricity Kgosientsho Ramokgopa. This means that candidates who were not high enough on party lists to get seats in parliament could still be substituted in. 

Although technically the pool of possible health ministers is thus quite large, political realities narrow the choices down considerably. 

Let’s start with candidates from the ANC, given that odds are still that our next health minister will be from the party. 

First in line is South Africa’s current Minister of Health Dr Joe Phaahla. He is not on the ANC’s national candidates list, but he is high up on the party’s regional list for Limpopo and thus set to become a member of the National Assembly. Though some might describe his time as health minister over the last three years as uninspiring, he also hasn’t been implicated in any scandals or made any obvious blunders.

It might well be that President Cyril Ramaphosa, presuming he stays in the job, sees Phaahla as a safe pair of hands and considers him the right person to drive the ANC’s stated goal of preparing for and starting the implementation of National Health Insurance. Phaahla previously served for some years as Deputy Minister of Health. 

Second in line is the current Deputy Minister of Health Dr Sibongiseni Dhlomo. He is also not on the ANC’s national list, but he is high up on the ANC’s KwaZulu-Natal regional list and thus also set to join the National Assembly. He is a former MEC of health for KwaZulu-Natal and former chair of parliament’s portfolio committee for health. If Phaahla is not to return, Dhlomo would be the most natural replacement. 

After those first two candidates, things get much harder to predict. 

Former health ministers Dr Aaron Motsoaledi and Mmamoloko Kubayi are on the ANC’s national list and Dr Zweli Mkhize is on the ANC’s KwaZulu-Natal regional list. Given that Motsoaledi’s time at Home Affairs has been something of a disaster, it is not impossible that Ramaphosa might feel he can get more out of him back in the health portfolio where his record was somewhat better.

A return of Mkhize to the health portfolio seems extremely unlikely given the grubby circumstances under which he left. Kubayi’s role for a few months as acting health minister was really just that of a care-taker, and a return is unlikely. 

One interesting trend is that the ANC has largely chosen medical doctors as health ministers and deputy ministers – Phaahla, Dhlomo, Motsoaledi, and Mkhize are all medical doctors. 

Current Eastern Cape MEC for Health Nomakhosazana Meth is high on the ANC’s national list, though the poor performance of the Eastern Cape Department of Health in recent years should mean her chances of getting the top health job are slim.

In previous years, current Limpopo MEC for Health Dr Phophi Ramathuba was considered a possibility by some, but her name is only on the ANC’s candidates list for the Limpopo legislature and a few ill-judged incidents, such as a video in which she berated a pregnant woman, would make her a controversial choice. She’s also often been at loggerheads with unions in Limpopo. A lack of standing with healthcare workers may also hold back the prospects of one or two others with health backgrounds who did make it onto the ANC’s national list. 

Candidates from other parties 

The DA remains South Africa’s official opposition. Should they become part of a ruling coalition or government of national unity, the current Western Cape MEC for Health would be the party’s most obvious candidate for the role of health minister. Mbombo is however only on the DA’s list for the Western Cape legislature and is thus likely to again be the province’s MEC for health.

Jack Bloom, the party’s leading health MPL in Gauteng over the last two decades would be a long shot for the post of health minister, as would Dr Karl le Roux, an award-winning rural doctor who has joined the party. Bloom is on the DA’s list for the provincial legislature and not on the lists for the national assembly. It is thus not entirely out of the question that he could become MEC for health in Gauteng.  

The EFF received the fourth most votes nationally, having been third in the previous national elections. In the previous parliament they were represented on the portfolio committee for health by Dr Sophie Thembekwayo (not a medical doctor) and Naledi Chirwa. Chirwa is last on the EFF’s national candidates list and is thus very unlikely to return to the National Assembly. Thembekwayo is 36th on the EFF’s national candidates list. 

It is also possible that other parties such as MK or the IFP could end up as part of a governing coalition or government of national unity and that candidates from these parties would thus also be in with an outside chance for the top health job. There will be many new, and to us unknown, faces in parliament – no doubt we’ve missed some people with solid health backgrounds in our analysis. 

As mentioned earlier, the President can appoint two ministers to his or her Cabinet from outside the National Assembly. It is thus possible that someone with health management expertise could be roped in from outside the usual political circles.

Though very long shots, outsiders like Dr Fareed Abdullah – former CEO of the South African National AIDS Council and an important player in the early days of HIV treatment – or Professor Glenda Gray – outgoing President of the South African Medical Research Council – might well, and arguably should, be considered. Though we’d be surprised if strong outsider candidates like these two are interested in the job given how politically fraught the role is likely to be. That said, we suspect the right outsider candidate would be a hit in healthcare circles. 

Ultimately, whichever way the current negotiations pan out, the ball remains in the ANC’s court when it comes to determining who will be our next Minister of Health. That means the decision is likely to remain subject to the ANC’s internal politics, with all the complexities that entails.

Despite all the intriguing possibilities, chances are thus that it will be Phaahla or Dhlomo who get the nod – and in terms of South Africa’s healthcare trajectory things will probably remain roughly as they are now. 

Republished from Spotlight under a Creative Commons licence.

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Categories : Healthcare Politics and RegulationsTags :

#Vote4Health | Opposition Parties Promise to Resolve Healthcare Understaffing. Do They have the Right Solutions?

On By ModernMedia

By Jesse Copelyn

Photo by SJ Objio on Unsplash

Several political parties have pledged to plug shortages of healthcare staff at government hospitals and clinics by training more health workers. They’re right to be concerned with understaffing, but are they putting the right solutions on the table? Jesse Copelyn investigates.

As the election approaches, one message seems ubiquitous among opposition parties: there is a severe shortage of health workers at government hospitals and clinics. Manifestoes of the DA, EFF, MK, IFP, ActionSA, UDM, Rise Mzansi and the ACDP all make some reference to the issue or simply state they would increase the number of health workers in the system if they were in power.

But why are so many parties from across the political spectrum pointing to this particular problem, and are they proposing realistic solutions?

Government health facilities are shedding staff

Various sources of data show that public health facilities are indeed heavily understaffed, giving weight to parties’ concerns. For instance, in March, the National Health Department revealed that appointments for a number of key clinical posts across the country have not been made. In some of the worst-performing provinces – the Free State, North West and Limpopo – more than 20% of posts for medical officers (i.e. non-specialised doctors) were unfilled.

Additionally, in the North West, almost 2 out of 5 nursing posts were vacant, while half of all positions for psychiatrists were unstaffed. Meanwhile in the Free State, a mere 3 out of 5 posts were filled for physiotherapists and occupational therapists.

These health worker shortages appear to be getting worse. The 2030 Human Resources for Health strategy document, which was published by the National Department of Health, estimated that in 2019, we required about 186 000 primary healthcare workers in the public sector. This would ensure that every person that relies on government services had access to a basket of primary healthcare services that matches the country’s needs. Yet at the time, we only had about 115 000, meaning that we were short by about 71 000 workers. And by 2025, that gap was projected to widen to over 87 000. This is because it was assumed that the number of clinical staff would remain the same over time, while the overall population (and thus the number of patients) would increase.

In reality, this actually understates the problem, Dr Donnella Besada, a health economist who was involved in that research, tells Spotlight. Rather than remaining the same, the number of health personnel in the public sector probably will have declined by 2025.

“The workforce is likely to go down over time as a result of the freezing of posts, retirement, illness and death,” she explains.

Indeed this was a trend that had already begun in the 2010s when total government spending on health began to stagnate in real terms, and irregular expenditure ballooned. Thus, government health facilities didn’t have the money to hire more staff, and between 2012 and 2016, the total number of people employed by provincial health departments actually declined.

The extent of the problem is perhaps most acutely seen in the area of specialist care, as the Human Resources for Health strategy document shows. Take anaesthesiologists – the doctors who put you to sleep before an operation and monitor your vital signs. Researchers estimated that given factors like the age of the population and the types of diseases that are prevalent, South Africa should have about 50 anaesthesiologists for every million people. In the private sector, we’re well over the bar, with nearly double that targeted ratio. In government health facilities, however, we’re way under, at about 6 anaesthesiologists for every million patients.

Right problem, wrong solution?

Clearly, politicians are onto something when they talk about the need to increase the number of health workers in public hospitals and clinics. But how do parties propose that we do this?

While solutions vary, one of the most common proposals that has been put forward both in party manifestos, and in interview responses to questions by Spotlight, is that we should invest more in training of health workers. For instance, the EFF manifesto states that the party would establish “at least one health care training facility per province and [ensure] that there is no province without a health sciences campus, inclusive of nursing school and medical school [sic]”. Similarly, the newly established MK party states that it would “expand the capacity and intake of medical schools”.

Manifestoes by ActionSA and RiseMzansi also state that they would train more health workers, while the UDM and ACDP told Spotlight that they would invest more in nursing colleges, along with other measures.

What unites these approaches is the belief that a central reason for understaffing is that we aren’t training enough health workers, and we have to find ways of boosting this capacity. However, two senior managers in the public health system that spoke to Spotlight provide a very different take. They argue that the most fundamental reason for understaffing is budgetary – facilities simply cannot afford to appoint more health workers even though there are often qualified people available for hire.

For instance, a former CEO of a public hospital in the Western Cape, who would prefer to remain anonymous, explains to Spotlight that the reason their hospital was unable to plug shortages is simply due to “affordability in terms of the budget received from the national government”.

In this context, more campuses and colleges would do little to solve the problem. “[T]oo many training institutions mean that once they graduate there are too few posts for internships or community service”, the former CEO says, referring to the positions that medical students must take up at government hospitals and clinics after graduating. He elaborates: “Once [the internship and community service] is done, there are no posts for permanent positions”.

All the way on the other side of the country, a senior manager at a government hospital in KwaZulu-Natal, who also wanted to remain anonymous, says much the same. He tells Spotlight that “understaffing has been a problem for some time”, and that the shortage of nurses is currently the most significant obstacle. Asked about the causes, he says “financial reasons” are almost always to blame (though he did feel that we needed to train more specialists). He elaborates “this year the budget has been cut compared to last financial year, so [the shortages are] a bit severe now”.

Asked whether more training would solve the shortage of nurses and medical officers, he is doubtful. “[M]any of the already-qualified people were not able to be employed, so training more? I don’t think this is a solution… for now the focus should be on employing the unemployed people”, he says.

This sentiment is also largely echoed by the National Department of Health, which in April stated that there were over 2000 unfunded posts for medical doctors in the country. An additional R2.4 billion was needed to fill them, according to the department, which has also been battling accusations from the South African Medical Association that over 800 qualified doctors cannot find work. In response, the department claimed that the majority of them had only just finished their training.

Training capacity has already hit its ceiling

What one might not realise from reading party manifestos is that the country has already substantially boosted the training of doctors over the last decade. As I have previously written for Bhekisisa, it is partially because of this that the public health system is increasingly struggling to absorb new medical graduates entering the system.

Professor Shabir Madhi of Wits University. Photo: Wits University.

For instance, Professor Shabir Madhi, the dean of the health faculty at the University of Witwatersrand (WITS), tells Spotlight that universities began to increase the intake of medical students (ie, those training to be doctors) some time ago, partly due to state pressure. Over a similar time period, the government expanded the Nelson Mandela Fidel Castro programme, which educates medical students in Cuba. As a result, while there were fewer than 1500 medical graduates that were available to be placed for internships in 2017, there were over 2100 in 2024.

The opposite trends have nonetheless taken place for some other health worker categories. For instance, in 2017, there were over 21 000 student nurses and midwives, and this dropped to below 15 000 in 2022. As Spotlight previously reported, this decline is at least in part due to disruptions related to how nurse training is accredited in South Africa.

According to Madhi, we’re still not training enough health workers to meet the needs of the country, but further expanding student intake wouldn’t address the current understaffing crisis, as the government is unable to employ the health workers that we’re already producing. Instead of training more health science students, he says, the health department needs to focus on “incorporating existing and newly graduating healthcare workers into the public sector”.

Additionally, even if we resolved our budgetary problems, there are hard limits on how many more students we can currently train, says Madhi, who laughs off campaign promises about building more medical campuses and scaling up student intake. “[M]ost of the training of health workers takes place outside of the classroom in our healthcare facilities,” he says, adding that “there are only so many healthcare facilities that have the right type of personnel to be involved in training, and their ability to absorb more trainee healthcare workers is fairly limited”.

While universities have increased the intake of medical students over the years, the ceiling has now been reached, argues Madhi, who notes that the number of trainee doctors that WITS is sending to its academic hospitals is “already exceeding the capacity that they can accommodate”. As a result, the university now sends students “to other hospitals which weren’t necessarily designed, and are not necessarily equipped or resourced, to undertake training”. He notes that these problems don’t just apply to trainee doctors, but also “occupational therapists, physiotherapists, oral hygienists and dentists”.

Madhi concludes: “Unfortunately, politicians are somewhat naive of what is required to establish training programmes in the health sciences”.

Republished from Spotlight under a Creative Commons licence.

Source: Spotlight

Categories : Expert OpinionTags :

Opinion Piece: Addressing Sanitation Challenges – A Call for Prioritising Basic Needs in South Africa’s Upcoming Elections

On By ModernMedia

By Robert Erasmus, Managing Director at Sanitech

Photo by Hush Naidoo Jade Photography on Unsplash

In South Africa, and across many developing nations, the discourse leading up to elections often centre on fundamental issues that directly impact the daily lives of citizens, such as the cost of living and access to clean water and sanitation. As the world witnesses a significant portion of its population gearing up to vote in 2024, it becomes evident that the voting criteria in developing countries vastly differ from those in developed ones.

While developed nations may debate topics like climate change and immigration, citizens in developing countries like South Africa are primarily concerned with securing basic necessities for survival and dignity. The disparity in voting patterns reflects the stark contrast in the challenges faced by people living in different parts of the world.

Elevating the discussion on South Africa’s paradox

South Africa, despite being regarded relatively highly in terms of election fairness, grapples with persistent challenges in providing access to clean water and adequate sanitation facilities. Our democratic process works, but it needs to be leveraged correctly for the benefit of our people. Many communities across the country continue to suffer due to the absence of proper sanitation infrastructure, perpetuating cycles of poverty and disease. The lack of clean water exacerbates these challenges, posing significant obstacles to health, dignity, and economic progress.

The interconnectedness of health, dignity, and economic progress

It is worth noting that the voting populace in South Africa has shifted its focus from ideological differences to practical concerns about the delivery of basic human rights. This shift underscores the importance of addressing the immediate needs of citizens before delving into broader policy discussions. Without access to clean water and sanitation, individuals and communities struggle to break free from the cycle of poverty and disease, hindering their ability to participate fully in economic and social life.

The impact of inadequate sanitation and clean water access extends beyond health and dignity – it also affects economic progress. Families burdened with preventable illnesses spend precious resources on healthcare instead of investing in education and livelihoods. Children often sacrifice their education to care for sick family members, further perpetuating the cycle of poverty. To address these challenges, practical solutions must be prioritised that ensure equitable access to clean water and sanitation for all citizens to break the cycle of poverty and disease and pave the way for economic growth.

Solving South Africa’s challenges starts with sanitation

These solutions include investing in infrastructure that can provide clean water and adequate sanitation facilities to all communities, especially those in rural and underserved areas, while at the same time investing in the repair and maintenance of existing infrastructure.

Implementing technologies such as water purification systems and innovative sanitation solutions tailored to local needs can help bridge the gap in access. Additionally, community engagement and education programs are essential to promote hygiene practices and ensure the long-term sustainability of water and sanitation initiatives. By prioritising these solutions, South Africa can make significant strides towards ensuring equitable access to clean water and sanitation for all its citizens.

Advocating for real change beyond election promises

Citizens have a central role to play in advocating for real commitment from political candidates. By elevating the discussion around sanitation and clean water access, voters are better informed to hold leaders accountable for delivering on their promises. Political parties must recognise the importance of addressing basic needs and commit to implementing sustainable solutions that uplift communities and promote dignity. For political parties this will be one of the most effective ways to win and retain the vote.

As we get closer to election date, it is essential to correctly prioritise the basic needs of citizens, including access to clean water and sanitation. This is not a critique of the government but a call to action – a recognition of the fundamental rights that must be upheld for all individuals to thrive. By addressing sanitation challenges, South Africa can pave the way for a future where every citizen has the opportunity to live a healthy, dignified life and contribute to the nation’s prosperity.