New Office of Health Standards Compliance to Steer Health Facilities

JOHANNESBURG, May 2, 2011 - Establishing formal guidelines through the inauguration of a new Office
of Health Standards Compliance is hoped to tip the balance in favour of
public sector facilities.

South Africa currently spends a generous 8% of GDP on healthcare every
year. However most of that money is being spent through the private
healthcare side, despite the fact that nearly 64% of the South African
population relies on the current public system. In the meantime, the vision
for infrastructure growth is one of the important drivers to ensure service
delivery goals are achieved.

With the proposed introduction of the much debated National Health
Insurance (NHI) plan set to commence in 2012, The Ministry of Health's
recently published draft laws pave the way for the new Office of Health
Standards Compliance, which is expected to play a key role in accrediting
health facilities once the government's plan for the NHI gets under way. The
office will set standards for the public and private sectors, and is intended
to help managers improve the quality of services that is poor in many public
hospitals and clinics. It will also inspect health facilities and certify
those that meet the grade.

The newly released National Health Insurance white paper will be explored
in detail at the second annual Health Facilities Design and Development
Africa conference where the focus will be on developing effective hospital
models to complement this NHI strategy. Hospital planners, engineers and
architects will have a unique opportunity to familiarise themselves with the
application of design, construction and equipping of hospital facilities
within the realm of these new Ministry of Health directives while reviewing
hospital developments already in motion in South Africa and Botswana.

The Health Department's cluster manager for the Office of Health
Standards Compliance, Dr Carol Marshall, recognises that these reforms are
only the start of a continuous process that will standardise the variety of
models within the private arena and for the first time initiate formal
guidelines for the state sector. Mr Kurt Worrall-Clare of Hospital
Association of South Africa (HASA) further elaborated that the private
hospital sector worked closely with the Health Department to devise protocols
that would apply to both public and private hospitals and emphasised that
"the intention to measure all facilities with the same yardstick is
commendable".

About IQPC:

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For information about Health Facilities Design and Development
conference, 20 - 23 June 2011 at Sandton, Johannesburg, South Africa, visit
www.healthfacilitiesafrica.com Alternatively contact: Katia Andrejev,
Marketing Manager, IQPC at katia.andrejev@iqpc.com or call; +9714-446-2748

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