South Africa News

The President of South Africa, Mr. Cyril M Ramaphosa, on Thursday 25 July 2019 launched the country’s ‘Presidential Health Compact’. The Compact lays down a five-year roadmap for health systems strengthening reforms under the ‘9 pillars’ towards accelerating Universal Health Coverage (UHC) in South Africa. It originated from months of extensive consultative deliberations between key stakeholders following the Presidential Health Summit in Oct 2018. The Stakeholders comprised government, health and allied health professionals, labour, business community, academics and researchers, statutory bodies, traditional health practitioners and public health entities. WHO provided essential technical advice and support in development of the Presidential Health Compact.

Following completion of drafting the Gauteng Provincial Department of Health Maternal and Neonatal Revival Plan (2019-22), WHO was requested to facilitate prioritization of strategic interventions and costing of the strategic plan.  The support included introduction of the One Health Tool (OHT) for financial planning of healthcare program to ten participants from Provincial Department of Health, health facility in-charge and clinical doctors (Gynaecologists and Neonatologists).

South Africa's National Department of Health representative from the Oral Health Directorate, Dr Dr. Mzimkhulu Mcuba, with Chief Dental Officers from ministries of health and NCD focal points from WHO country offices in 20 Member States completed a three day capacity building workshop to accelerate implementation of the Regional Oral Health Strategy 2016-2025 held in Brazzaville, Congo from 27 February – 1 March 2019. The workshop programme included sharing of country achievements, expert input and partner contributions covering a broad range of policy aspects, implementation challenges and opportunities, as well as global developments relevant to country implementation and monitoring, such as the Minamata Convention on Mercury. Over the course of the deliberations, participants and invited experts acknowledged the overall progress made in the oral health agenda. Concern over existing gaps in policy intentions and implementation were also raised.

To commemorate the WHO global initiative “Goals Week: Connect your PMDS to the triple billion goal, 4-8 February 2019”, the Country Office in South Africa conducted a strategic workshop “Goals Week: Aligning WHO South Africa’s work towards GPW-13 priorities” from 7-8 February in Pretoria. The workshop involved all staff to update them on the latest developments regarding GPW-13 and Programme Budget 2020-21 and catalyze strategic deliberations through group work in clusters on means for achievement of priority GPW13 outcomes at the country level and identify individual staff PMDS objectives for 2019 clearly linked to GPW-13 output(s). The WHO Representative Dr Akpaka Kalu provided strategic direction to the discussion through transparent and open dialogue. He made it clear that UHC would be central to WHO programmes in South Africa and encouraged staff to think beyond specific programmes and contribute to resource mobilization and leadership functions of WHO which are traditionally considered as functions of the WR’s office. Working as team, multiple staff can select a given GPW13 output but still have no duplication of functions. After group work presentation on PMDS objectives and their alignment to GPW13 outputs, the Programme Management Officer presented preliminary analysis of overall contribution of the office to the GPW13 outputs, as planned in the PMDS for 2019.

As part of the South African Government’s commitment for ensuring Universal Health Coverage (UHC), draft National Health Insurance (NHI) Bill was recently passed by the cabinet; the goal of the bill is to facilitate health systems and financing reforms towards enhanced access to quality health services without financial hardship in the country. As a demonstration of the highest level political leadership for UHC, the President of South Africa hosted the ‘Presidential Health Summit’ on the 19th and 20th October 2018 in Johannesburg. The purpose of the Summit was to engage with stakeholders to deliberate on the challenges in the health sector and to collectively define the roadmap for South Africa’s journey towards UHC with the NHI as entry point.

Just under three weeks of having landed in South Africa as the new World Health Organization (WHO) Country Representative in South Africa, Dr Akpaka Kalu, has already held a series of introductory meetings with United Nations (UN) Resident Coordinator (RC), Ms Nardos Bekele-Thomas; South Africa’s Minister of Health, Dr Aaron Motsoaledi; Member of the Executive Committee for Health for the KwaZulu National Provincial Department, Dr Sibongiseni Dhlomo; KwaZulu Natal Province Head of Health, Dr Musa Gumede; and the University of KwaZulu Natal WHO Collaborating Centre for Educating Nurses and Midwives in Problem-solving. Beyond introducing himself, Dr Kalu also focused on learning about South Africa’s state of health from the key informants and share WHO’s mandate of supporting member states in improving their health outcomes; affirming that WHO would continue to support the national health system in three investment pillars: normative guidance; implementation support; and generation and use of evidence to support implementation and guide policies and strategies.

South Africa’s Ministry of Health declared the end of the world’s largest listeriosis outbreak today (3 September). The World Health Organization (WHO) applauds the country and all those involved in ending the outbreak for their efforts, while calling for continued work on strengthening the country’s food safety system.

As part of the centenary celebrations of former President Nelson Mandela and Mama Albertina Sisulu, WHO joined government, other UN agencies and various social partners on 10 July 2018 on a 100 Men March through the Pretoria streets of South Africa to boldly declare that violence against women and children will not be tolerated in respective environment or communities.

The Health Market inquiry (HMI) established by competition commission to investigate South Africa’s private healthcare market released its provisional report on 5th July 2018 in the presence of the Minister of Health, media and stakeholders from healthcare sector. The HMI was chaired by Judge Sandile Ngcobo, a retired Chief Justice of the Constitutional Court. The Commission after 4 years of detailed investigation and multiple stakeholder consultations concluded that: Private health market is characterised by high and rising costs of healthcare and medical scheme cover; disempowered and uninformed consumers; and ineffective regulation and failures of accountability at many levels. The 808 page provisional report makes several interesting findings and lists out some recommendations including (but not limited to): Establishment of a supply side regulator to set the rules of the game and scrutinize the private sector: Measurement and Public reporting of health outcomes by the private providers to improve competition and inform patients about quality of care; Replacement of Certificates of Need with hospital licences for equitable spread of facilities across the country.

The Control of Tobacco Products and Electronic Delivery Systems Bill, approved by the Cabinet of the Republic of South Africa (the Bill) and published for public comment until Thursday 9 August 2018, is a highly comprehensive piece of tobacco control legislation. It is consistent with South Africa’s obligations under the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC) and brings South Africa back to the forefront of international tobacco control best practice. The Bill updates existing tobacco control laws to keep pace with global tobacco control recommendations and allows the effective regulation of new tobacco products, in particular electronic nicotine and non-nicotine delivery systems (ENDS/ENNDS) and heated tobacco products (HTPs). These and other novel and emerging tobacco products are not adequately covered under South Africa’s current tobacco control legislation which was drafted to regulate cigarettes and other traditional tobacco products.