Health

Question by:

Hon Wendy Philander

Answered by:

Hon Nomafrench Mbombo

Question Number:

Question Body:

Whether clinic committees and hospital boards have been established in the province; if not, why not; if so, (a) how many clinic committees and hospital boards have been established and (b) where have they been established?

Answer Body:

Clinic Committees
1. Rural Health Services

There are 109 designated clinic committees in all rural districts combined. Please see annexures for details of each committee per district.

The graphic below shows that 44 clinic committees have met all the criteria, members have been appointed and 11 of the committees have already met.

11 out of 44 Clinic Committees have met

1. Metro Health Services :

There are 45 designated clinic committees in the metro . Please see annexures for details of each committee per district.

The graphic below shows that 14 clinic committees have met all the criteria.

There has been an increase since May 2019 from 11 to 14 clinics meeting the criteria

1. Hospital Facility Board

43 out of 47 Hospital Facility Boards are active across the province. The breakdown per district is shown below. The inactive boards are where memberships have expired and they are in the process of being re-advertised.

Where have they been established? SEE ANNEXURE A & B

(c) The Challenges in establishing Committees :

The Department has been busy trying to recruit members over the 2018/19 financial year and used a variety of means to call for nominations including adverts in local newspapers, posters in clinics, social media, the Minister personally encouraging communities in her site visits.
Nothwithstanding the above efforts, there has been inadequate responses of nominations that meet the criteria as per the legislation in many instances.
3. There were initial delays in securing nominations of councilors from Local government but that has been addressed. In some instances there has been changes in nominations which adds to delays.
There has been a protracted process from nominations to appointment and convening the committee meetings. Capacity is being increased in the Minister’s office as well as within the rural and metro strategic meso offices as well other improvements to the process including drafting a SOP that clarifies roles and responsibilities.
A database is being developed that will help tack progress across the almost 200 structures of clinic committees and boards.
The Minister and Department will continue to pursue strategies and interventions to get these structures functional and operative as we remain committed to community involvement in Health and believe these structures are an important mechanism to give effect to this objective.

Annexure A: List of Hospital Boards