REMARKS BY THE HONOURABLE DEPUTY MINISTER FOR HEALTH AND SOCIAL
SERVICES, Mr. RICHARD KAMWI,
on behalf of
DR. LIBERTINA AMATHILA, MINISTER, ON THE OCCASION OF THE 4th
EXTENDED MINISTERIAL MANAGEMENT MEETING
Master of Ceremonies
Permanent Secretary, Dr
Shangula
National and Regional
Directors
Deputy Directors
Medical Superintendents
Chief Medical Officers
Hospital Nurse Managers
Ladies and Gentlemen
Allow me first of all to extend to you all greetings from the Minister for Health and Social Services, Dr Libertine Amathila. She would have loved to be with us this morning but regrets that she had to attend the Cabinet. She wishes you all good health and strength as you embark on your Plan of Action for the year 2002. She entrusted me to give you the message. I am extremely grateful to be here with the management cadre of my Ministry on the occasion of the first Ministerial Management Meeting in the year 2002.
I will not take much of your
time, since this is mostly the Permanent Secretary’s area of jurisdiction and involves
administrative and management issues.
But I thought it important to be present and to participate in the
meeting for various reasons.
Secondly, this gives me an
opportunity to meet you all face-to-face for the first time in the new
year. I trust that we all had a very
good rest during the past holiday season and that we all are ready for the
challenges that lie ahead.
Thirdly, I would like to put
it in record to all of you as managers of the Ministry and indeed as leaders of
our health and social services that I value this meeting and all the other
management meetings scheduled during the course of the year. I believe management and leadership is about
communication. It is about putting
problems on the table, discussing them openly, finding solutions together and
then going back to our working environments to solve the issues properly. I strongly believe that this is the only way
through which we will be able to continuously improve our services. And that is what the general public expects
from the Minister responsible for health and social services.
Master of Ceremonies
Ladies and Gentlemen
Let me now come to some of
the priority areas that the Minister would like the Ministry to work on during
the year.
Firstly, you are all aware
that the new staff establishment will be phased in during the new fiscal
year. She would like to assure you that
she is convinced that this new structure will give the ministry a clearer
organisation than we have ever had. She
wishes that through this structure communication and efficiency will be further
enhanced. She is personally looking
forward to a speedy implementation of the new structure. After the staff establishment is in place,
she would like to see that all staff members are clear about where they work,
what their job description is and how they relate to the overall organisation
of the Ministry. She knows that you as
supervisors will make sure that after the new structure is introduced there is
even a clearer vision and more unity of purpose among all our staff members.
Another area, that the
Minister would like to touch upon is the area of quality of health care. We all know how we constantly are pressed to
meet the high standards that the Namibian public and our patients are demanding
from us. This in itself is a very good
thing, since it keeps us all being accountable for the service we provide. In this regard she would like to emphasise
five areas that we need to strengthen on.
Firstly, our medical services must be accessible and must comply with
minimum standards. In this regard, I am
glad to announce that the ministry will soon obtain a contingent of medical
doctors from Cuba, who will assist us with the pressing doctor shortages
particularly in the rural areas.
Furthermore, she had said it before, that we must improve our nursing
care. We now have a Patient Charter in place.
This Charter must be upheld by all involved. It particularly requires from our nurses that they provide good
nursing care to all patients and clients.
We have to work hard on making this a reality in our hospitals.
In addition, we all know,
that our health care services are judged by the drugs or medication our
patients receive. If we want to retain
our good image amongst our patients, we can not afford repeated stock-outs of
drugs and medical supplies. Finally, we
all know that the provision of good health care requires a minimum availability
of certain technology and medical equipment.
We must do all in our power to improve our medical equipment situation
during the year. This includes the
procurement of new equipment and a vastly improved system for maintenance of
equipment. In addition, all of us, who
have been patients before, will well appreciate that the basic needs of any
patient must be met. In other words, a
clean and well maintained environment, acceptable food, clean linen and a good
standard of the basic amenities must be in place in all our hospitals. I can only appeal to all the relevant
directors and programme managers that you must make sure during this year that
we further improve our standards in all the above mentioned areas.
Last, but certainly not
least, let me come to the HIV/AIDS epidemic that is affecting our country. I would like to assure you that the
President, the whole Cabinet and the Minister are very concerned about the
situation. That is why she tasked the
Permanent Secretary last year to make preparations for the introduction of a
Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission Programme. The PS will tell you much more about this important programme
during the next few days, so I will not go into the detail. But let me assure you that the Programme
will start very soon. The Minister
would like to see the staff involved in the Programme in the Katutura and
Oshakati Hospitals to get all possible support from their management and the
respective directorates at national level so that all of us together can make
this Programme a success.
Master of Ceremonies
Ladies and Gentlemen
Allow me the opportunity to
wish you all a very successful year 2002.
I am sure that it will bring us closer to our common goal of health for
all Namibians. With these remarks, I
now have the singular honour to declare this meeting officially opened.
I thank you!