Hon Chairperson, hon Ministers here with us today, hon members of the House, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, the transformation of the health sector and dealing with poverty, as Cllr C Johnson from Salga has indicated, requires collective collaboration across the broad spectrum of government, the private sector and communities.
I take this opportunity to commend all those individuals and collectives who chose not only to point fingers, but to partner with the Department of Health and Social Development in the implementation of the departmental programmes and projects aimed at improving and promoting health care and social development provisions in our province and our country.
We say to all of you that your efforts are not in vain. They are the building blocks towards an integrated, sustainable, accessible and quality health care system and social services that endeavour to create a better life for the poor, the vulnerable and the excluded in our society.
I take this opportunity to pay tribute in memory and honour of our officials who fell in the line of duty, such as Mehloti Hetisani, one of our public servants who fell in the line of duty; the management of the Seshego Hospital that were murdered carrying out their responsibilities; the emergency care providers who die on our roads in the rush to save lives and in general the health workers who at times contract communicable diseases whilst in the process of serving others.
Indeed, the two Ministers have indicated that we are committed. This ANC- led government is committed to doing more in building infrastructure, providing equipment, purchasing more tablets, but indeed you can't buy compassion, commitment and empathy.
It's only those that have been there - that know what hunger is, that have slept without food, that have been dehumanised, whose dignity was trampled on - that can talk about compassion. Indeed there are some of our officials who have died, as I said, in the line of duty, showing such commitment. As a department we aim to emulate these individuals and continue from where they've left off.
In honouring them, we commit ourselves to serve with pride and rise above the many challenges that continue to impact negatively on the provision of quality health care and social services, which are - the Minister has talked about most of them - limited resources, both human and financial, infrastructure, difficult working conditions compounded obviously, in our province, by the rural nature of our province.
We embrace the call by the hon Premier of our province, Mr Cassel Mathale, who said everything we do must contribute in a direct and meaningful way to the improvement of the lives of our people and that the time for procrastination has passed, and that we have to revitalise a new culture of doing a job today and finishing it today, not tomorrow.
We further commit to address the issues raised by His Excellency President Zuma in his state of the nation address that there is a need to further reduce the inequalities in the health care provision, and the Minister has talked to all those; boosting human resources capacity of the department; revitalising hospitals and clinics; stepping up the fight against HIV and Aids and other diseases and paying urgent attention to the issue of remuneration of health professionals.
Note must be taken of the following top five killer diseases in the province, which are ischaemic heart diseases; cerebrovascular accidents, that is, bleeding into the brain, which causes strokes; infections of the lower respiratory tract, that is TB; gastrointestinal infections in children, attributed mainly to poor sanitation and lack of safe drinking water; and HIV and Aids-related infections.
Factors around maternal deaths still relate to issues of nonavailability of expertise in our institutions, such as gynaecologists and anaesthetists, integration amongst departments and health education within the communities.
A burden of disease project has been initiated, but is unfortunately not functioning optimally due to financial constraints. We will pay more attention to research, and the Minister has also talked to this, which will provide us with accurate baseline information for targeted intervention.
One of the challenges facing the department is a lack of basic information and vital statistics on causes related to infant mortality per district in our province. This is important, as we have indicated. If we are to embark on a targeted approach to reduce infant mortality, we have to be informed of what diseases are killing our children and in which areas, so as to channel all our resources in that fashion.
The budget proposal we are tabling before this august House affords us an opportunity to elaborate on our collective contribution towards further efforts in the creation of a better health system based on a principle that health, like education, is a precondition for development. A healthy nation contributes to innovation and development.
I must indicate that we have an allocation of R9 billion for the financial year 2009-10 and 59,7% of that goes to compensation of employees, whilst 27,2% goes into goods and services and part of that, of course, would be the programmes that we are running for the health branch. For Social Development we have an allocation of R761 million and 27% of that allocation goes for compensation of employees and 26% goes to goods and services.
The issue of poverty has been raised in this House, as well as in many of the forums. For us the passing of the Children's Amendment Act holds the promise of reversing this picture and is the dawn of a new era in the care and protection of children. To advance this prospect, we are relying on national, provincial and local government, as well as all other relevant stakeholders to implement the Act and to co-ordinate it in a manner that would maximise the limited resources.
As the Minister of Social Development indicated, integral to overcoming the effects of child poverty are programmes such as the Early Childhood Development, ECD, Child Care Protection, Foster Care and Orphans and Vulnerable Children.
In relation to the ECD in the province, we have renewed our registration drive of ECD centres. We have already registered and funded 1 263 sites during the past financial year and we will increase our subsidy from R9,00 per child a day per attendance to R12,00 per child a day per attendance. Going forward, we intend to register another 309 sites by March 2010; this would bring it to a total of 1 572 registered ECD sites.
An amount of R89 million has been allocated for the ECD programme. A call is hereby made on all stakeholders and, most importantly, our communities to ensure that children are taken to these centres and that parents and communities take an active role in monitoring and implementing these programmes as implemented in these centres.
With regard to child care protection, the Minister has talked a lot about it. As a province we have allocated R35 million for this purpose. The amount will be utilised for providing food parcels, supporting institutions that cater for these vulnerable children. We are still making a call to all stakeholders, especially relatives and families of these children, in the spirit of ubuntu ...
... gore kgodi?o le tlhokomelo ya b ana ke maikarabelo a rena re le set?haba ka moka. [T?hwahlelo.] [ Nako e fedile.] [... that it is the responsibility of the whole nation to raise and take care of the child.] [Interjections.] [Time expired.]]