Department Of Health National Budget
Honourable Chair of the Portfolio Committee on Health and members of parliament My Colleague Deputy Minister of Health
MECS of Health
Heads of our Public Health Entities and Statutory Councils Deans of Faculties of Medical Sciences
Health professionals who have joined us today; Distinguished guests
Fellow Compatriots Ladies and gentlemen
Opening Statement
Thank you for this opportunity to table the Health budget vote and policy statement for 2021/ 2022.
Our country is emerging from a tumultuous year of 2020, which has seen huge global devastation from COVID 19. In our country, this resulted in 1,6 million positive cases, 10,9 million tests done, 54 968 associated lives lost, though 95% of those affected have recovered. The COVID-19 positive cases have started to rise significantly and we may find ourselves in the third wave. Of concern has been the emergence of B.1.351 in our country and the importation of B1.617.2 variant from India and B.1.1.7 from the UK. We all have a responsibility to use the non-pharmaceutical interventions to protect ourselves and reduce the risk of infection.
Our country is set to begin phase 2 of the vaccination program on 17th May 2021 targeting 130 sites in the public sector to be active next week, focusing on the population aged 60 and above and vulnerable groups, using Johnson and Johnson and Pfizer vaccine; as vaccination of the remainder of health care workers is being concluded. Private sector sites will open later next week.
Over the medium term, the department’s most urgent focus is combatting the Coronavirus through our comprehensive local intervention programmes, for which R9 billion has been allocated. We continue to play our strategic roles as co-chair of the ACT-Accelerator and COVID-19 champion of the African Union, following HE President Cyril Ramaphosa’s outstanding leadership in his capacity as chair of the AU in 2020.
Globally, the lesson from the impact of COVID-19 has emphasized the necessity of investing in long term resilience and sustainability of health systems to enable us to better respond to future health emergencies and crises.
The COVID-19 pandemic caused significant health seeking deterrence and a various results have pointed to this challenge. The mandates set out in the Performance Agreement that I signed with the President for the Period of June 2019 to April 2024, indicate the need for innovation to close these service delivery gaps. Chief amongst these include the establishment of the NHI Fund, implementing the recommendations of the Health Market Inquiry Report, building human resource capacity, quality improvement, expansion of health infrastructure, risk management, uprooting corruption and ensuring clean governance as well as building partnerships through social compact.
Today I rise to table a budget of R62,5 billion for the Department of Health for 2021/22.
Allocations per Programme are as follows (000):
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