Pretoria - South Africa's health system can expect a much needed boost in 2011 with Government planning to train more doctors and nurses, upgrade hospitals, and prioritise women's health.
Delivering the State of the Nation Address on Thursday evening, President Jacob Zuma said the focus for the year would also be on the appointment of appropriate and qualified people to the right positions.
He singled out the positions of heads of department, chief financial officers, hospital chief executive officers, district health officers and clinic managers, saying adequately qualified people needed to take up these positions.
Government also intends on training more nurses and doctors in 2011.
Plans are in place to revitalise 105 nursing colleges across the country and a medical faculty that is expected to be established at the Limpopo Academic Hospital will train more doctors, Zuma said.
In addition, renovations and refurbishments at the country's hospitals and clinics will continue.
Focus is will also be given to women's health.
"..we will broaden the scope of reproductive health rights and provide services related to amongst others, contraception, sexually transmitted infections, teenage pregnancy and sanitary towels for the indigent," the President said.
On the issue of the fight against HIV/Aids, Zuma noted that government had revitalised its programmes in this field.
Preventative measures such as medical male circumcision, the prevention of mother to child transmission and HIV testing were all areas that government were promoting, he said.
"The testing has been popularly taken up around the country. Just over 5 million HIV tests have been done since the launch of the testing campaign in April last year."
The president also touched on the National Health Insurance (NHI) scheme, saying in the past year work had gone into developing an implementation plan and policy for the NHI.
"Government will soon be releasing the policy document for public engagement," he said.
