Debate on Mental Health Facilities Visit

Posted in: on 02/06/2022 | Categorised as

  1. Hon. Speaker, mental health awareness needs holistic interventions from birth to death.
  2. Notwithstanding the department’s attempts to create mental health wards in some hospitals and fully- fledged mental hospitals in some areas, more dedicated planning is required through stakeholder engagement among the DOH, DSD, DOE, NGO’s, SAPS, Department of Justice and health portfolio committee.
  3. This workshop is critical in order to designate one hospital per district for mental health care and clear roles for integrated management. Further classification needs to be along clinical disorders and self-induced behaviours like drug- addiction.
  4. I want to thank our hard-working chairperson for the report and her passion is unmatched.
  5. The matter of uMzimkhulu Psychiatric Hospital in Harry Gwala District needs resolution. Of the 77 patients, 72 are from Eastern Cape and 5 from KZN. They stay forever in the hospital and require a complement of 291 personnel. This is an untenable situation.
  6. To prevent litigation arising in KZN’s Mental Health facilities it is important to dedicate two centres of excellence as teaching hospitals for mental healthcare; one for serious mental health illnesses and the other for drug rehabilitation. Furthermore, more registrars need to be trained.
  7. The DOH needs to study the quarterly performance reports of each of these facilities and the Hon. MEC needs to report bi- annually to this Hon. House; so that budgeting can evolve to promote alternate mental healthcare strategies across government programmes.
  8. The need to invest in telemedicine currently, in light of the lack of registrars must become a separate line-item on the health budget.
  9. Finally, cross-border facilities need budgets resolved at MinMec level.
  10. Thank you.

Hon. S. Thakur-Rajbansi

DETAILS

Debated by: Hon. Shameen Thakur-Rajbansi

Minority Front Leader (KZN Legislature)

Date: Thu 2 Jun 2022

Time: 09:00 to 12:00

Word Count: 295 Words

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