Five-year objectives
Communicate within the National Health System through:
Communicate with health sector stakeholders through:
Key objectives for 2000/1
Minister's public programme
The Minister of Health sustains a very full programme of public appearances. There is an attempt to distribute national launches fairly evenly across provinces and balance events planned for media coverage with those designed to reach remote communities.
The Health Summit
The largest consultative exercise in the recent history of the Department took place in November 2001: The Health Summit.
This was a three-day consultative meeting held in Johannesburg and attended by more than 600 delegates. Many were drawn from the public health sector, with the emphasis on provincial, district and institutional representation. But there was also a strong presence from research and training institutions, from professional and statutory bodies, from trade unions and non-governmental organisations. And there was a relatively small but nonetheless significant contribution from the private sector - practitioners, health care institutions and funders.
Table 30: Participants' evaluation of the Health Summit*
Poor or moderate |
Average |
Good or excellent |
Not answered |
|
| Openness of discussion | 12,6% |
23,4% |
62,4% |
1,7% |
| Involved stakeholders | 9,2% |
29,7% |
60,2% |
0,8% |
| Generated useful ideas | 5,4% |
20,5% |
72% |
2,1% |
| Built broad commitment | 12,4% |
28% |
56,5% |
3,3% |
| Opportunity to network | 5% |
13,4% |
80,7% |
0,8% |
| Showed DoH commitment to consult | 8,4% |
16,3% |
74,9% |
0,4% |
| Showed DoH ready to discuss difficult issues | 16,4% |
16,3% |
66,9% |
0,4% |
| Summit organisation | 16,4% |
16,3% |
66,9% |
0,4% |
| Overall evaluation | 3,8% |
6,7% |
87,9% |
1,7% |
| *A total of 239 participants completed forms that were distributed to all | ||||
The Summit was organised by a team from various sections in the Department, with a programme committee that spanned government and civil society. The main themes for consultation were:
Priorities for action were identified in each theme area. A team convened by the Director-General and - once again - comprising health department and civil society representatives was charged with guiding and tracking action in response to the Summit's recommendations. In some instances, it would be appropriate for the Department to simply implement recommendations; in other instances implementation would require the participation of other role players.
Table 30 summarises the results of an evaluation survey conducted at the Summit. It reflects the enormous value of the event. Close to nine out of 10 participants rated it as a positive experience and five out of 10 went as far as rating it "excellent".
Health System Communication
While channels of communication that are available to all stakeholders are also accessible to those within the health system, the Department has a special responsibility to communicate directly with those who make up the system - and especially the public sector component.
Vertical vs general communication
Well-established structures for "vertical" consultation and information sharing exist in most programme or service delivery areas. The challenge appears to be to streamline some of these so that demands on provinces and districts are more manageable.
However, regular information sharing across a broad spectrum of health subjects is confined to the highest level of the health system, the Health Minmec and the Provincial Health Restructuring Committee. A strategy to strengthen communication between national, provincial and district structures was approved by Minmec during 2001, but implementation was stalled by lack of capacity in the Department.
Communication units in several provinces were strengthened during the year and the frequency of meetings between provincial and national units has resulted in a partial alignment of efforts.
Stakeholder communication
The Department's website was redesigned during the year. While the new site is still being populated, it is playing a significant role as an authentic source of information. There are about 90 000 successful hits per month, more than half of them international.
The site is a combination of the health information system database and more general information. Particular attention is paid to placement of the Minister's key speeches and media releases so that stakeholders are not reliant on edited versions of these.
Media liaison
The ability of the Ministry and the Department to interact with the media and respond to issues within right time frames has improved. However, issues relating to HIV and AIDS dominated the media discourse from November 2001. There is a history of controversy in this area that intensified with the institution of the PMTCT court case. The opposition of major media to the Minister's case - as evident in editorial declarations - had a generalised impact on media relations.
Pro-active media advocacy initiatives on HIV and AIDS attempted to reflect the comprehensive nature of the national AIDS Programme and to profile the range work that was being done. This was quite successful at the level of community and regional media, but had less impact nationally and internationally.