State clinics in for major overhaul

STATE-run clinics throughout SA will cut patient waiting time in half and provide world-class primary healthcare by 2018, if President Jacob Zuma has his way. But it will be no overnight task, according to the team of experts Zuma put together to implement the clinic improvement programme, known as Operation Phakisa Phase Two.

Business Day, 19 November 2014

This phase of Operation Phakisa - the government's service delivery acceleration programme - is aimed at improving services at SA's 3 507 public clinics and making them primary healthcare facilities of choice by 2030.

During the development of phase two, teams from business, government, academics and organised labour met at a retreat in Pretoria for five weeks to discuss what constitutes "the ideal clinic". According to the team's research, the average patient spends 80 percent of their time at a state clinic waiting in a queue, with only a quarter of patients waiting less than two hours for service. Among the recommendations from the retreat delegates was the establishment of public call centres and pick-up points for patients collecting medication in order to speed up delivery.

Zuma said the work of Operation Phakisa would ensure shorter waiting periods at clinics, ensuring clinics do not run out of pharmaceuticals and that no outpatient spends hours waiting at a clinic only to be turned away without being served. Various departments will monitor the implementation of Operation Phakisa Phase Two with ministers, including Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi, providing the President with progress reports. Motsoaledi said the department already ran 10 ideal clinics but needed to address quality and cost of primary healthcare to replicate their models nationally. Deputy Minister of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs, Obed Bapela, said many districts battled with clinics as patient numbers have increased and outstripped the number of primary healthcare facilities available to service them.