While the Covid-19 pandemic has had an impact on the health system and service delivery, it has also created an urgency for more collaboration and collective resilience. “Health is everyone’s business,” said the Western Cape’s private sector, universities, and civil society who attened the provincial health departments External Health Indaba last Friday.
Throughout the pandemic we have seen volunteers and community-based organisations step to the plate in supporting the overwhelmed health system, Western Cape health minister Dr Nomafrench Mbombo said.
“We are now on the move to start rebuilding the province and commit ourselves to WoGA (Whole of Government Approach), underpinned by greater policy coherence across departments with sound policy decisions and coherent actions.”
Step into the future
The indaba is an important step in seeking intersectoral collaboration from government departments and all stakeholders to work towards a healthier Western Cape where health is everybody’s business, she added.
“My overarching goal is to have a health system that is people-centric, trusted and equitable; a system that is built on a caring, competent and empowered workforce, clean governance, innovation, and accessible service delivery. The goal is to have a health system for everyone,” said Mbombo.
The head of Western Cape Health and Wellness, Dr Keith Cloete, emphasised the importance of working together.
“With the Indaba we aim to share and test our thinking as a department and our strategic direction for the provincial health system with participants. To move to a healthier Western Cape, we need to build a shared understanding of what it means to be people-centric and collaborative in how health services are delivered, how the health system is governed, and how we create a healthy public policy.”
The outcomes of the External Health Indaba will be used to drive the Western Cape government’s health and wellness reset agenda on how it can work more collaboratively with private sector, higher education institutes and other government departments. It will also help the department to understand which steps we need to take to do things differently to ensure collaborative service delivery, collaborative governance, and collaborative healthy public policy.
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