KwaZulu-Natal Department: Health

Overview

The mission of the KwaZulu-Natal Department of Health is to develop a sustainable, coordinated and comprehensive health system at all levels, based on the primary health care approach through the district health system.

The strategic goals of the Department as outlined in the Strategic Plan 2015 to 2019 are: (1) Strengthen health system effectiveness – the finalisation of enabling policies, frameworks, systems and processes to create the enabling environment for efficient service delivery; improved leadership and management at all levels of the health care system to ensure efficient utilisation of scarce resources; PHC re-engineering with intensified focus on community and household coverage and implementation of the Ideal Clinic Realisation and Maintenance Programme (Operation Phakisa); implementation of turnaround strategies for Emergency Medical Services and Forensic Pathology Services; development and implementation of a Hospital Rationalisation Plan, supported by a comprehensive Communication Plan, to improve hospital efficiencies; (2) Reduce the burden of disease – implementation and robust monitoring of the Integrated 90-90-90 strategy to reduce the burden of HIV, AIDS and TB and improve health outcomes; integrated strategies for maternal, child and women’s health to reduce morbidities and mortalities; increased focus on the prevention and management of non-communicable diseases, including strategies to increase healthy lifestyle programmes; scale up of programmes for the prevention of malaria to ensure zero new local cases by 2020; (3) Universal health coverage – scale up the roll-out, monitoring and evaluation of National Health Insurance (NHI) initiatives to other districts within the framework of the white paper on NHI; health facility planning and infrastructure delivery informed by analysis to identify infrastructure pressure areas; (4) Strengthen human resources for health – finalise review of organisational structures to inform the Essential Post List and long-term Human Resource Plan; first phase pilot of the Decentralised Training in a PHC Model in northern KZN in partnership with the University of KwaZulu-Natal; improve performance management; (5) Improved quality of health care – actively implement and monitor the National Core Standards in all facilities to improve clinical quality and patient satisfaction; improve pharmaceutical procurement and distribution reforms, including implementation of direct delivery and cross-docking model, and community-based distribution of medicines.