Hon Chairperson, whilst the KwaZulu-Natal health care and medical practitioners are in the news, let us laud KwaZulu-Natal efforts for taking the lead in dealing with the problems and let's be mindful that other provinces have similar ones.
We must be able to quantify the issues and not throw the baby out with the bath water. It will be totally unethical and inaccurate to paint all doctors with the same brush. We must commend those doctors who do an honest hard day's work in keeping the Public Service going.
Similarly, those doctors that abuse medical aids must be identified and dealt with. However, the principle of generalisation is the mother of all disasters. Let us not bring good people down. We must go back to 1994 and identify how many people were getting treatment in our public hospital system in comparison with today. The numbers have significantly increased. Those who assume no development transpired within the health fraternity are living in stupidity, and perhaps we must get one of our hardworking doctors to give them a check-up.
Health care is an issue of life and death. People must not play to the gallery to score cheap political points, but rather place emphasis on promoting a health care environment that will ultimately meet the needs and expectations of communities pertaining to health reform policy and legislation.
The ARV roll-out programme is obviously a massive one, and KwaZulu-Natal is leading in bringing the HIV rate down. Clinics in rural areas are a massive development. When did you get dental, physiotherapy and gynaecology treatment in rural areas? Did you ever hear about that? Did you ever hear about mobile clinics in the past? Even if you look at the urban hospitals, whilst there is a lot that still needs to be done, like managing long queues and reducing the waiting time, there are many improvements in treatment and care. A pensioner today can come out with more than R1 500's worth of medication per month, which was never available during the apartheid regime. [Applause.]
The MF is concerned, however, about losing our nurses to overseas countries and we must work on the shortage. We are sending 600 students to Cuba to be trained, which is a relatively small and poor country in comparison to the medical school of KwaZulu-Natal and its top-notch reputation. We can't take in, at all our medical schools ... Why can't we take in more scholars to produce more doctors at the University of Cape Town, the University of KwaZulu-Natal and Wits University?
Let us all commit to empowering doctors to bring health care to all South Africans, black and white. This is simply about building trust, relationships and valuing diversity. This will indeed not only build a healthy, strong and energetic rainbow nation to live for generations to come, but, equally, our medical practitioners and nurses will leave an indelible impression for our future generation of medical practitioners to advance our health care system based on honesty, integrity and dignity. The MF will support the Budget Vote. [Time expired.] [Applause.]