Hon Chairperson, hon Minister and Deputy Minister of Health, hon Ministers and Deputy Ministers here present, hon members and guests, this debate takes place because our Constitution obliges government to ensure that everyone has access to health care services, including to reproductive care. It also guarantees that no one may be refused emergency medical treatment, whilst, at the same time, guaranteeing that every child has the right to basic health care services.
These constitutional obligations should be non-negotiable. These obligations should be what the ANC government should deliver. It is not a favour to the people of South Africa; it is what Cope regards as the success or failure of the ANC government on behalf of South Africans.
The ANC government promised the people of South Africa that they would deliver care through the implementation of a 10-point plan. This 10-point plan was supposed to ensure that what the Constitution enjoins the government to deliver is delivered.
The 10-point plan promises that the government will meet the Millennium Development Goals. They promised, through a negotiated service delivery agreement between the Health Minister and the President, that they would deliver an increase in life expectancy whilst decreasing maternal and child mortality. The 10-point plan promised the people of South Africa that quality health care would be delivered via the implementation of National Health Insurance to ensure that universal health care became an achievable dream. This would include acceleration in the delivery of health infrastructure and the efficient management of health technology. All these are based on the re-engineering of the primary health care system.
This is what has been promised. Based on these promises, the ANC government has claimed, amongst other things, that they have achieved the following: a total of 617 147 new patients were put on antiretroviral treatment in 2011- 2 compared to 418 677 in 2010-11; 9,6 million South Africans accepted HIV testing in 2011-12; a cumulative total of 20,2 million people have undergone HIV testing since the launch of the HCT campaign, the HIV counselling and testing campaign, in April 2010; a total of 6,353 000 female condoms have been distributed, which exceeds the target of 6 million; a TB cure rate of 73,1% for 2010 was achieved against a target of 75% - this is regarded as an improvement compared to the 71,1% cure rate recorded in 2010-11 for 2009 - and the TB defaulter rate has decreased from 7% in 2010-11 to 6,8% in 2011-12.
Hon Chairperson, members, ladies and gentlemen, you will be forgiven if you are now convinced that we are dealing with the Minister and the department of HIV/Aids and TB, because that's what the achievements sound like. You will not hear how the Minister intends handling the private sector delivery of health care or the ever-escalating health care costs. Maybe you will hear of NHI in the distant future, or some investigation will also take place in the distant future to deflect attention from addressing these real issues.
The Minister and the ANC speakers whose role is to mainly sing praises are going to tell you, hon members, that the department got unqualified audit opinions for two consecutive years. Cope congratulates the director-general and her staff in this regard. We hope that this trend will be a permanent feature of the department.
What they will not tell you is that out of the nine provincial health departments, six provinces received qualified audit opinions and two received disclaimers. Only one province, the Western Cape, received an unqualified audit opinion. [Applause.] The reasons for this unqualified audit opinion ... [Interjections.] That is a fact. I am not the Auditor- General. The reasons for these unqualified audit opinions are, inter alia, that employees were appointed without following proper process to verify the claims made in their applications in contravention of Public Service regulations. Also, not all senior managers signed a performance agreement as required by Public Service regulations.
This practice, to be politically correct, is called cadre deployment. By the way, a deployee should be understood to be someone who would, under normal circumstances, not succeed in getting a job if the proper channels of applying, short-listing and interviews had taken place. That's why subordinates have no respect for deployees.
Cope is raising these issues because quality health care should not only be heard; our people in clinics and hospitals should experience it. The horror stories in these institutions should be a thing of the past. Health care is not experienced at national level with policies, but at hospitals and clinics.
A young man, 25, called Jean-Pierre Dippenaar, had an appointment at the Bongani Regional Hospital in Welkom to undergo dialysis treatment. When he arrived at the hospital, there were no functioning machines. He could not afford to go to a private hospital. The question is: Why was this appointment scheduled if the hospital knew that their dialysis machines were not functioning? Why was he not directed to another hospital on time given that communication technology is so advanced? [Interjections.] Hon member, you can shout as much as you like, but, unfortunately Jean-Pierre is no longer alive owing to your inefficiency - because you believe you are only here to shout at speakers when they tell you about the failures of government. [Interjections.]