President Cyril Ramaphosa says the new Dr Pixley Isaka Ka Seme Memorial Hospital in KwaMashu, north of Durban will help tackle the country’s growing healthcare burden of non-communicable diseases.
Speaking at the opening of the hospital last week, Ramaphosa referred to a Statistics SA report published last month warning that cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, chronic lower respiratory diseases and cancer, among others, would challenge the state healthcare’s service delivery.
He said the opening of the hospital reflected the government’s commitment to “advancing the call made by the Freedom Charter for free medical care and hospitalisation … and for the health of women and children to be prioritised”, reports IOL.
“Our experience with the Covid-19 pandemic, and the experiences of other developing countries, exposed the fragilities of global co-operation in health,” he pointed out.
“We were confronted with a stark reality of being pushed to the back of the queue when it came to accessing life-saving medical supplies and equipment and vaccines.”
IOL article – Health systems must respond to growing health-care burden- Ramaphosa (Open access)
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