‘Health of South Africans is not all about hospitals’
|Published
Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi says all liquor adverts target those who don't drink. Picture: Dumisani Sibeko Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi says all liquor adverts target those who don't drink. Picture: Dumisani Sibeko
Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi said the best way to get South Africans to enjoy healthier lifestyles was by setting up a national health commission to spearhead the issue.
This commission would be chaired by the deputy president of the country, deputised by an academic, while the minister of health would only be third in charge.
The government intended drawing up the criteria for the commission and advertising for nominations for commissioners. The commission would be able to make proposals on laws.
Motsoaledi said: “If you listen to many South Africans, they believe I am the minister of hospitals. They believe that if all the hospitals are fixed, everything will be okay in terms of health care.
“I am not the minister of hospitals. I am the minister of health. That includes public health and public health can happen outside a hospital. Public health is putting things in the environment that make it difficult for people to fall sick. That includes environmental health, which everybody knows about. Remember there used to be health inspectors. They were not doctors, they were not in hospitals.
“They were people who start with health right where people live. Remove this and that here, this river is blocked, the sewerage system is blocked, you can’t sell this here, you can’t practise this here. You are going to make people ill. That is public health, it is environmental health.
“Part of public health is, can you stop the social determinants of health? Many South Africans want us to forget about those, get to hospital and fix everything there. They believe that if hospitals work very well, then everybody entering a hospital will come out fine. I’m sure you know it is not true, anywhere in the world.
“All the other things, leave them to happen. Leave them to drink as much alcohol as they want, leave them to smoke and when they get lung cancer, there will be an oncologist who will deal with them, there will be radiotherapy, there will be chemotherapy. We all know that all those things, in the final analysis, don’t work.”
The minister said there were two big hurdles to tackle – the deterioration in the quality of public health and the ever-escalating cost of private health care.
“If we can solve these two – and it is my job – the health-care system will improve tremendously.”