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The Minister of Health Dr. Aaron Motsoaledi and the top management of the Department of Health appeared before the Portfolio Committee on Health yesterday to present officially to the Committee the report of the Ministerial Task Team on the task of probing service delivery in the selected hospitals in the country where service delivery challenges were identified.

In July 2015, Dr.  Motsoaledi appointed a high level five-member task team to investigate the state of affairs at the identified hospitals in the country.

Members of the task team are, Prof Ronald Green-Thomson, the former Head of Department (HOD) at the University of KwaZulu Natal’s Department of Health, Dr. Ralph, the former HOD of Department of the Gauteng Provincial Government’s Department of Health, Prof Keith Craig Househam, the former HOD of the Department of Health in the Free State Provincial Government and in the Western Cape Provincial Government, Ms Nomvula Marawa the former Director of Policy, Planning & Coordination in the national Department of Health and Professor Rezaul Karim who is the Head of Procurement Support at the South African Revenue Services.

The task team visited 25 hospitals in Six Provinces and made findings with recommendations which Dr Motsoaledi presented to the Committee yesterday. Members of the Committee received and adopted the report with all its findings and recommendations.

According to the findings the task team identified four main areas of concern and those areas are, Human Resources; Supply Chain Management, Financial Management and Maintenance of Infrastructure and equipment.

Dr Motsoaledi emphasised that the four main areas identified fall within the provincial competency and there is no provision of concurrency. Dr Motsoaledi made a recommendation to the Committee to adopt the report and its recommendations and use it as part of its oversight programme whenever the committee visits provinces to assess the state of health facilities.

The Committee has resolved to work tirelessly in ensuring that all the 25 recommendations that are contained in the report are fully implemented without delay as they have far-reaching direct negative impact on the delivery of health care services in the country.

"We as Members of Parliament want all South Africans to work together in ensuring that quality care services are delivered to the people and therefore we will ensure that all the administrative and technical stumbling blocks are resolved immediately. The delivery of effective health care services to all our people is a constitutional right," said the Chairperson of the Committee Ms Mary-Anne Dunjwa

Issued by Parliamentary Communication Services on behalf of the Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee on Health, Mary-Anne Dunjwa