Government Turns Attention to Public Hospitals

November 23 - South Africa's health system's inability to bring down infant mortality rates is of major concern to the government.

The Health Minister, Aaron Motsoaledi said that he would be creating a cabinet of senior government officials whose job it will be to assess the state of the country's public hospitals and deal with their shortcomings.

Motsoaledi said that the government is worried that the 353 public hospitals are spending too much money and not delivering the minimum of what is expected of them.

"The team will look at each and every public health institution's problems, because we believe that our institutions are not doing well," said the Health Minister.

Speaking about the fact that South Africa is one of 10 countries in the world that has not managed to bring about a change in its infant mortality rates, Motsoaledi said: "There are many countries that spend far less than we do but they have achieved this."

The Health Minister does not believe that supplying more money to the public hospitals will solve the problems facing them.

"You don't measure the quality of health by the amount you put in, but by outcomes," he said. "We have a problem of spending too much money and receiving bad outcomes."

Some of the problems facing public hospitals included running out of urgent medicine, something that happened in the Free State this year.

"I am not happy with what happened in the Free State province," chided Motsoaledi. "Hospitals should notify us a week before they run out of medicines."