Newly-appointed Gauteng Health MEC Bandile Masuku says he intends to reduce the waiting time for patients at public hospitals and clinics, as well as boost staff morale.
He was talking to the media after taking his oath of office in Parktown, Johannesburg.
Masuku was sworn in as a member of the provincial Executive Council alongside nine other colleagues. Masuku says he understands the challenges faced by the Health Department.
“Waiting time, waiting time to get the medicine, waiting time for surgery, maybe in terms of surgery and other things… that’s the first priority that I’m going to do. And I know for a fact that the staff morals in our all our facilities and the department in general is very low. So it’s one thing that we’re going to focus on, and dealing with staff morale is an issue that relates to shortage itself. Issues of remuneration and all those things. So staff morale and patient experience are the key things that we’re going to focus on.”
Meanwhile in KwaZulu-Natal, the new Health MEC Nomagugu Simelane-Zulu was out and about in the at Northdale Hospital in Pietermaritzburg, where she gained first hand experience of challenges that lay ahead.
She says although the hospital is old she is happy with its operations.
Simelane-Zulu says one of her goals during her tenure is to install an electronic filing system at all health facilities in the province.
“The one thing that concerns me is the issue of admissions; and when you look at how the system is actually done, it is not convincing that we are able to deal with it thoroughly. Of course the department had tried in the past 2 years to put in a new IT system and they’ve had challenge. So we are going to have a proper briefing in relation to that and see what else can be done because in this day in age on of the things we need to be able to do better is to move towards a paperless society.”
