South Africa explores faith-based healing

The South African Department of Health met with religious leaders in Johannesburg on Monday (21 February 2005) to discus areas of cooperation between the Department and faith-based organisations in improving health of South African nation.

The meeting agreed that there are a number of issues of mutual interest, which require more cooperation between the Department and religious community. They agreed that there would be areas where there would be no consensus.

The Department of Health is guided by the Constitution of the country, which acknowledges the diversity of the South African nation. The Department therefore encourages individuals to make informed choices about their own health.

The areas of mutual interest include discouraging smoking, alcohol and substance abuse and risky sexual behaviour. There is a need to work together to promote healthy lifestyles including healthy and nutritious diets, regular exercise and encouraging screening for diseases such as diabetes, sugar and blood pressure levels and various kinds of cancers.

There is also a need for more cooperation in the implementation of the Comprehensive Plan for Management, Care and Treatment of HIV and AIDS.

Prevention remains critical in the absence of a cure for HIV and AIDS. There is a need to encourage particularly young people to abstain from sex and those who are involved in sexual relationships to be faithful to one partner.

There is also a need for more cooperation between the Department and religious community to improve effectiveness of these two prevention measures and broaden them to cover the challenge of gender inequality and infidelity within marriages.

The Department acknowledges that there are many people who still engage in sexual relationships that may expose them to sexually transmitted infections and unwanted pregnancies.

The Department will therefore continue to provide condoms to those who choose this option. Condom distribution has doubled from an average of 17 to 33 million condoms per month since the launch of re-branded Choice condoms in 2004.

There is a need for cooperation in improving uptake in Voluntary Counselling and Testing as this is a critical entry point for management, care and treatment of HIV and AIDS, supporting people on TB and AIDS treatment and providing home-based care.

We had an extensive discussion on issues relating to the overall performance of the health system during the meeting.

The Department made a presentation on various measures that are being taken to recruit and retain health workers within the public health sector and rural areas in particular.

The meeting agreed that there should be joint efforts to support health workers at the forefront of service delivery to maintain high moral and dedication to the principles of Batho Pele and the Patients Rights Charter.

There should be a standardised training for Community Health Workers that is broad to cover a wide range of health care needs of households and ensure that comprehensive health services are provided on the ground with support from clinics and hospital.

The religious leaders expressed support for government efforts to make health care and medicine affordable to the majority of the people in the country. There is a need to ensure that transformation process in this area is managed properly to minimise contradictions.

There is support for the Department to forge ahead with efforts towards establishing the social health insurance as directed by Cabinet.

The process of developing the health charter should provide a better framework for interaction between the public and private health sector. We also need to ensure that health services provided by faith-based organisation are also part of the collaboration with public health sector.

We are both entrusted with a duty to ensure the well being of our nation - be it in the physical or spiritual sense. There is therefore a need to have follow-up discussions to begin to implement specific initiatives on areas that we have mentioned are of mutual interests.

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