As I write this, I am challenged by the state of South Africa today. Echoing the words of an American President, Gerald Ford, addressing the United States Congress in his 1975 State of the Union Address when he memorably told his nation that, “the state of the Union is not good” I would say that “the state of South Africa is not good”. South Africans are challenged daily by failures of service delivery from local, provincial and national government as well as State-owned entities. As a South African health professional I am particularly concerned by the impact of these failures on the public health service that serves the majority in this…
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The Road to Better Healthcare … we are at a crossroads.
Following my last post, I have been reflecting further on the failures in public health care in South Africa since 1994. In doing so I reread a book, “Yenza – a blueprint for transformation”, published in 1998 that has been on my bookshelf since then. I worked with the author, Dr. Piet Human, on several occasions during the early days of my time as Head of the Free State Department of Health. Read some twenty years later, the optimism, idealism and hope of the years immediately after 1994, reflected in the book, are poignant given what has transpired since. The opening sentences of his book read as follows: “The present…
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“Accountability” essential for a successful nation!
“Accountability” as defined in the Merriam-Webster dictionary is “the quality or state of being accountable i.e. an obligation or willingness to accept responsibility or to account for one’s actions”. My professional training as a doctor made me aware of my accountability for my actions as a health professional. Accountability directly to my patient, a child in my case as a paediatrician, their parents and extended family. Accountability to the professional body with which I was registered to practice as well as to my employer, a public sector health department and university. Later when I moved into health management in 1995, I became legally accountable in terms of the Public Finance Management Act…