The National Department of Health will introduce a phased development of electronic medical records for primary health services, focusing initially on HIV and TB patients, but with wider implementation by November, it says.
Additionally, its latest budget allows for 400 public health facilities to be maintained, repaired and/or refurbished, while 42 primary health care facilities and 50 hospitals would be “constructed or revitalised”.
A strong maintenance programme would also be implemented, reports The Mercury.
The information was released at a presentation on the department’s R62.2bn budget for 2024/25 before the National Council of Provinces’ Select Committee on Social Services a week ago, when Jeanette Hunter, deputy director-general for primary health, said the electronic records system “is a process that is being developed” and would be a game-changer “in terms of stepping up clinical quality and how well the health system is doing”.
A breakdown of the budget showed that administration is allocated R759m, NHI R1.3bn, communicable and non-communicable diseases R25.3bn, primary healthcare R3.3bn, health system governance and human resource R7.5bn, compensation of employees R694m, goods and services R1.7bn, transfers to provinces and entities R58bn and capital projects R1.4bn.
In other departmental plans, Hunter said they would strive to maintain the qualified audit and reduce to zero the number of invoices paid after 30 days.
She also said they were targeting 3.3m HIV-Aids patients to be enrolled on different models of care this year and 2 200 facilities to provide youth-friendly services.
A total of 16.7m clients would be screened for diabetes and 10.1m for hypertension.
Other goals by the department including increasing the number of hospitals that were compliant with food services.
“We have received a number of complaints about the quality of food at our state hospitals,” Hunter conceded, “and have been working on this for the past three years to turn the situation around …to ensure when South Africans are hospitalised they receive nutritious food.
“We will do inspections in 300 hospitals and this is 70 more to ensure food complies with standards.”
However, EFF MP Naledi Chirwa said there was a reduction in the departmental targets for this year compared with last year.
“It is an ongoing trend that the department keeps reducing the targets. There is no explanation. You reached certain outcomes but reduced the targets of the incoming year,” she said.
Chirwa highlighted the reduced number of health promotion messages on social media that have been reduced from 399 to 200.
The Mercury PressReader article – Health Dept introduces ‘game-changer’ (Open access)
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