1. Hon. MEC, I thank you and the officials for a well presented budget speech, for a budget that has not been cut.
2. Hon. MEC, critical milestones have been obtained with baby-friendly and now youth-friendly health facilities. But, we still have to work on mother and baby-friendly health facilities.
3. The recent NCC MED recommendations for caesarean section accreditation sites is imperative, with MMR for SA at 269 and for  KZN at 274/100000 live births, we have a long way to go to achieve MDG5 of 38/100000 live births.
4. Therefore, in face of rising medico-legal claims, where RAF gaps closed, maternal and neonatal gaps are feeding some lawyers and the way forward is rationalising and transforming MNH care services.
5. The MF’s recommendations are as follows:
   a) Upgrading Maternal Obstetric units as per the population guidelines by the WHO.
   b) Intensifying the ESMOE; fire drills and partograph training are welcomed but when doing the medico-legal workshops, the last I recall was around 2004, when Hon. L. Johnson was chair, please Hon. MEC, design a course for patient safety guidelines, follow the NHS Patient Safety guidelines, if you must.
   c) Transport means patient access to our available services, therefore we know that although 63 new patient planned transport buses have been purchased but more importantly, is a well-planned inter-facility referral network and the Free State has been successful, in this regard.
6. The WHO has recommended maternity waiting homes and with accreditation of C/S facilities, it is practical to locate maternity waiting homes in feeder district hospitals and community health centres.
7. What was optimistic, was the large turnouts of community to participate in discussions on the NHI White Paper and we can all appreciate such health participation.
8. Finally, the health systems strength depends on indicators like MMR or Maternal Mortality Ratio, notwithstanding that we are at mixed obstetric transition levels of I, II and III, because of our dual healthcare system and need to reach level IV, as a developing country, but global institutions look at these efforts to become donor partners and harmonisation is key.

The MF supports this budget, with these inputs which will assist in efficiency within a constrained budget.

Thank you.

Shameen Thakur-Rajbansi

MPL KZN Legislature