Statement by the Minister of Health, Dr Aaron Motsoaledi, at the national health leaders retreat 2010, January 26 2010

Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen

Thank you for responding to our invitation. You are joining us here at the end of three days of intensive deliberations. We gathered as the national health leadership together with international experts from more than eight different countries chosen because those countries have experience in dealing with many of the major health policy challenges us; as South African, are also faced with.

Specifically, we worked on developing a shared vision and collective purpose on how we as the national health leadership will drive our priority health agenda for the next five years. As you are aware, these priorities find expression in the 2009 to 2014 ten point plan. We specifically recognised and recommitted to the priorities of the National Health Insurance (NHI), full implementation of the national HIV and AIDS plan, an improved quality and efficiency across the public health system.

We determined that the yardstick against which our plans and progress should be measured is expenditure control, equity and efficiency. These elements need to inform both our planning and monitoring, so that we might achieve optimal outcomes in terms of overall efficiency of the health system and our success against the major health indicators such as infant mortality and maternal mortality.

We also recognised that while we are progressing on national macro-policy priorities such as the NHI, we must effect immediate and evident improvement in quality and efficiency particularly at primary healthcare level. Therefore, we recommitted to primary care as the foundation of our national health system and recognised the need to effect significant improvements in management and service delivery at the point of service. We also recognised that clinics and other health facilities operate as part of a broad national health management system and therefore increasing the health management overall is imperative.

We, as the national health leadership, resolved to proceed with transparency and accountability recognising the need to balance short-term deliverables with our long-term policy priorities.

In the light of the above, I am very pleased to invite you as media here now as we proceed with our work on these issues to engage with us and we commit like wise to engage with you.

Thank you.

Issued by: Department of Health

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