Health standards compliance 'vital to NHI plan'

The minister again repeated that the poor conditions in the public health sector had to improve drastically if an NHI was to be successfully implemented, and said the office of compliance was intended to ensure that this happened.

Dr Motsoaledi was briefing Parliament's health committee on proposed changes to the National Health Act that will establish an independent office of health standards compliance, as opposed to the current office, which reports to the director-general of health.

"NHI won't be successful without quality health standards in the public sector," he said.

The minister said there were two pre-conditions for the introduction of NHI. The first was a complete overhaul of the public healthcare sector to ensure the quality of service in public hospitals was dramatically improved. The second was that the prices charged in the private healthcare sector had to be regulated, "there is no doubt about that".

The minister described the National Health Amendment Bill as a revolutionary piece of legislation because it would "change the way that South Africans see the public health system".

The bill would provide for an inspectorate in the office of health standards compliance that would have to visit each public health institution at least once a year.

Problematic institutions could be inspected as often as was necessary in order to keep the staff on their toes all the time.

An office of certification is also proposed, as is a health ombudsman to "force" accountability on those running the nation's public healthcare institutions, he said.

Hospitals would be certified only once they had achieved an acceptable standard of care as established by the inspectorate.

He said judging from the number of complaints about public health care, the offices to be established "will be very busy indeed".

The public-health institutions would be judged according to six core standards: cleanliness, safety and security of patients, the attitude of staff, infection control, availability of drugs and long queues.

Dr Motsoaledi said the sad reality was that Parliament was probably cleaner than many public hospitals and that was the wrong way round. "We are going to make dirtiness illegal in South African hospitals".

He thanked the UK's Department for International Development, which provided funds and had trained the inspectors who would staff the office of health standards compliance.

Dr Carol Marshall, director of the Department of Health's office of standards compliance, explained to the committee that if an establishment was found to be noncompliant then a notice to that effect would be served on the person in charge. This notice would also detail the corrective action that needed to be taken and the time frame for this to be done.

The notice of noncompliance remained in place until a subsequent inspection found the problem areas had been corrected.

Penalties could include fines of up to R10m, and/or prosecution.

Source: Business Day