Pretoria - The Gauteng Health Department has made it clear to health professionals that from now on, the death of any person in the province's hospitals will have to be strictly accounted for.
"We have prioritised instilling an attitude among our health professionals that the death of a mother, a child or any person in our hospitals should not be regarded merely as a statistic. All deaths are now being investigated, causes identified and intervention measures put in place," Health and Social Development MEC, Ntombi Mekgwe, said on Tuesday.
She warned that where negligence is found, people will be held accountable and there will be no exceptions.
Presenting the department's detailed plan following the State of the Province Address, Mekgwe said in 2011/12, the department intends to rapidly upscale the child and neonatal mortality programme, which has been a major focus for government during 2010.
She said two provincial committees have been established to advise the department on methods and interventions to reduce maternal, neonatal, infant and child mortality.
The committees will continue to ensure rigorous monitoring and analysis of maternal and infant mortality in 2011/12.
Another important measure to reduce child and infant mortality is to ensure that staff is trained in the Integrated Management of Childhood Illnesses (IMCI).
"The department is conducting an audit to identify clinics that need to be strengthened in this area and in 2011/12, will ensure that every clinic has more than one IMCI-trained nurse and that nurses are also trained in Oral Rehydration Therapy - a simple yet critical step in preventing babies from dying from dehydration linked to diarrhoea," Mekgwe said.
On HIV and Aids, Mekgwe announced that since the launch of the HIV Counseling and Treatment Campaign in April last year, more than one million people have been tested. The department will also strongly focus on male circumcision because.
By the end of November 2010, more than 358 000 people had been registered on Anti-Retroviral Treatment and this was achieved through extending the service to Primary Health Care facilities.
She also noted that the introduction of multi-dose therapy to prevent mother to child transmission of HIV has resulted in a marked decrease in children born with HIV.
"Our target is to reduce the transmission rate of HIV to less than 5 percent across the province in 2011, and the Soweto-Bara model will be expanded to Ekurhuleni and Sedibeng in 2011/12," said Mekgwe.
