Minister in the
Presidency Jackson Mthembu says South Africa will continue working to improve
access to reproductive health care services.
Speaking at the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD), which is currently underway in Nairobi, Kenya, Mthembu said the newly completed five-year plan for the country’s 6th democratic administration affirmed that South Africa will in the next five years continue to improve access to reproductive health services, including targeting adolescent sexual and reproductive health and rights in order to address pregnancies and risky behaviour.
The plan also
includes upscaling existing campaigns and programmes on new HIV infections
among youth, women and persons with disabilities and develop targeted programme
on adolescent sexual and reproductive health and rights, including gender
mainstreaming, youth and disability issues in programmes, and addressing
teenage pregnancies.
Mthembu said
South Africa will strive to further reduce child and maternal mortality and to
improve access to reproductive health services and anti-retroviral treatment.
Highlighting some of the country’s interventions in ensuring access to quality health services, Mthembu said the country is currently piloting the National Health Insurance (NHI) in order to enhance universal access to quality health care as well as to bridge the quality gaps that exist in the private and public sectors.
“South Africa
has also embraced the importance of extending free dignity packs to poor women
and girls with a view to improve women’s reproductive health and contribute to
the retention of girl children in schools who often miss school during their
cycle.
“We are
confident that these interventions will ensure that we continue to place people
at the centre of our developmental agenda,” Mthembu said.
He said South
Africa continues to commit itself to tackling the challenges identified for the
2019 Nairobi Summit on #ICPD25.
The ICPD
Programme of Action commitments are centred around achieving zero unmet needs
for family planning information and services; zero preventable maternal deaths;
zero sexual and gender-based violence and harmful practices against women and
girls referred to as Ukuthwalwa; and providing detail for implementing second
phase of the democratic transition.
Reproductive
health care programmes
South Africa has also expanded reproductive health care through various programmes such as the Integrated School Health Programme which focuses on addressing both the immediate health problems of learners, including barriers to teaching and learning as well as implementing interventions that can promote their health and well-being during childhood and beyond.
The National Department of Health has introduced programmes such as B-Wise – a young person’s interactive cell phone health platform to empower adolescents and youth to make the right choices based on accurate information; and She Conquers Campaign – A youth-led campaign which will run for 3-years collaborating with government, NGOs, business, and civil society to address the major issues that adolescent girls and young women face in South Africa today.
South Africa has
over the last 25 years embarked on a number of legislative and policy
interventions which focus on the sexual health and wellbeing of young people,
as well as providing for women to choose a contraceptive method that they
prefer. The Choice on Termination of Pregnancy Act which was passed in 1996 has
ensured deaths from unsafe abortion has declined by more than 90%. Access to
Primary Health Care Services measured in terms of visits per annum, increased
from some 67 million in 1998 to over 128 million in March 2018. Furthermore,
the total numbers of new HIV infections declined from 270 000 in 2016 to 231
000 in 2018.
South Africa is currently also in the process of decriminalising sex work to ensure that the sex work industry is regulated and that women are protected.
Third World Network asks African civil society organisation to support its letter to the Chair WHO Expert Committee on Biologic Standardisation (EBCS) to revise the WHO biosimilar guidelines. The South African NCDs Alliance has signed. The content below is from TWN.
In 2014, WHA adopted the resolution on access to Access to biotherapeutic products including similar biotherapeutic products and ensuring their quality, safety and efficacy” (WHA 67.21).
It requests the Director-General: “to convene t). the WHO Expert Committee on Biological Standardization to update the 2009 guidelines, taking into account the technological advances for the characterization of biotherapeutic products and considering national regulatory needs and capacities and to report on the update to the Executive Board”. However, till date, the Secretariat has not updated the SBP Guideline.
WHO states that after the adoption of the WHA resolution“In April 2015, an informal consultation was organized during which participants from NRAs of both developing and developed countries, as well as from industry, recognized and agreed that the evaluation principles described in the Guidelines were still valid, valuable and applicable in facilitating the harmonization of SBP regulatory requirements globally. It was therefore concluded that there was no need to revise the main body of the existing Guidelines“.
This is a problematic approach and legally wrong. The resolution is clear and it asked the DG to convene the meeting of WHO Expert Committee on Biological Standardization to update the Guideline and not to convene the meeting of Expert Committee on Biological Standardization to decide whether to update or not. Further, the decision of Member states cannot be overturned by the informal meeting of National Regulatory Meetings. Further WHO has not published any verbatim records or minutes of the 2015 informal meeting.
The SANCDA, together with over 130 of our global NCDs comrades, asked our governments and officials to take action. Click here to read the letter. For a list of signatories click here.
Action is required to make universal health coverage (UHC) in our countries.
The objective of the Bill is to achieve universal access to quality health care services in the Republic in accordance with section 27 of the Constitution; to establish a National Health Insurance Fund and to set out its powers, functions and governance structures; to provide a framework for the strategic purchasing of health care services by the Fund on behalf of users; to create mechanisms for the equitable, effective and efficient utilisation of the resources of the Fund to meet the health needs of the population; to preclude or limit undesirable, unethical and unlawful practices in relation to the Fund and its users; and to provide for matters connected herewith.
Comments must be submitted to Ms Vuyokazi Majalamba at [email protected] by no later than Friday, 29 November 2019
Enquires can be directed to Ms Vuyokazi Majalamba at [email protected] and 021 403 3770 or 083 709 8522
The Bill has been tagged/classified as a section 76 bill (ordinary bill affecting provinces). The process of classifying a Bill into one of four categories is called “tagging” and will determine the procedures the Bill must follow to become law. Bills are tagged by the Joint Tagging Mechanism (JTM), a Committee consisting of the Speaker and the Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly and the Chairperson and Permanent Deputy Chairperson of the National Council of Provinces. They are advised by the Parliamentary Law Adviser. The JTM decides on the classification of the Bill by consensus.
This Bill in substantial measure falls within the ambit of ‘‘health services’’ which is an area listed in Part A of Schedule 4, which makes provision for functional areas of concurrent national and provincial legislative competence.
In the Tongoane judgment the CC held that the tagging test focuses on all the provisions of the Bill in order to determine the extent to which they substantially affect the functional areas listed in Schedule 4 and not on whether any of its provisions are incidental to its substance
The CC further held that the test for tagging must be informed by its purpose. Tagging is not concerned with determining the sphere of government that has the competence to legislate on a matter. Nor is the purpose concerned with preventing interference in the legislative competence of another sphere of government. The process is concerned with the question of how the Bill should be considered by the provinces and in the National Council of Provinces, and how a Bill must be considered by the provincial legislatures depends on whether it affects the provinces. The more it affects the interest, concerns and capacities of the provinces, the more say the provinces should have on its content
The South African elections are over, and it is back to business. It needs to be business as unusual in the case of NCDs prevention and management. Business as unusual? Einstein characterised insanity as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
When advocates argue, politicians vote, and organizations campaign, they say they are trying to shape or respond to political will. Political will is the ghost in the machine of politics, the motive force that generates political action. Charney Research
Business unusual
NCDs policy is a case in point with the now expired South African NCDs strategic plan (2013-2017) failing dismally even to scratch the surface of the epidemic. Similar to much of SA health policy, it was purely window dressing, with implementation and budgets unmeasurable. For the last decade, communicable disease (like HIV and TB) is the only health concern of politicians. Jacob Zuma and his ilk came to power on that ticket with a policy emphasising “universal access” for people living with HIV. And so national health insurance (NHI) and its identical twin, HIV treatment access, were born. Politicians and deployed officials don’t differentiate between the two. When you add “health systems strengthening” and the “Ideal Clinic” to the HIV/NHI package, it equals the current broken and siloed healthcare system.
Policy consistency as art
Let us not pretend otherwise as we head for the 2nd State of the Nation Address in 2019 with a raft of fledgeling MPs for 6th Parliament. There is zero political will deal with NCDs. Oops, there are two exceptions: fiscal measures and cancers linked to HIV (cervix and breast at a stretch). In the health bit of the 2019 ANC election manifesto, NHI and HIV remain the only priority. The same goes for the 2019 health budget. Policy consistency as an art form, only Einstein says it is insanity
So, business as unusual for people living with NCDs means acknowledging that NCDs like diabetes, stroke, heart disease and chronic lung problems are the biggest killers in South Africa. It means giving NCDs an equivalent priority alongside HIV and TB and putting the missing money where its collective mouth is.
Political will is the missing ingredient in the SDG era. It is going to take more than cheap words and a dawn walk in the name of NCDs prevention.
The South African elections are over, and it is back to business. It needs to be business as unusual in the case of NCDs prevention and management. Business as unusual? Einstein characterised insanity as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.