Cape Town - The Western Cape government has fared better than most provinces in recent years with its health outcomes, often rated the best in the country.
The province has the highest life expectancy rate in the country, according to Statistics SA’s mid-year population estimates, released last year.
The findings indicate that citizens of the province can expect to live up to 67 years on average.
The figures show men could live to 64, and women to 70.
The figure was higher than the national average of 59.6 years – or 61.4 for women and 57.7 for men. The increase in life expectancy has been attributed to the roll-out of anti-retrovirals across the country.
The Western Cape’s infant mortality rate was the lowest: 23 among every 1 000 live births in 2010.
This was significantly lower than the national figure of 41.7 among every 1 000 live births in 2012.
The mortality rate among children under 5 remained high, however: it was 56.6 among every 1 000 live births in the Western Cape last year.
This was almost double the 29 among every 1 000 live births in 2010.
The latest national HIV household survey by the Human Sciences Research Council found the province also had the lowest HIV prevalence at 7.8 percent.
KwaZulu-Natal had the highest number of people – nearly 28 percent – with the disease.
The rate of mother-to-child transmission of HIV in the Western Cape remained low at 1.7 percent.
The national average, however, was even lower, 1.3 percent, in 2012.
In the past five years the province has carried out the biggest infrastructure projects in its recent history, including the building of two prominent district hospitals – in Khayelitsha and Mitchells Plain.
About R2.7-billion has been spent in the same period in building or revitalising 17 primary health facilities, 12 ambulance stations, eight district hospitals, five pathology laboratories, and central hospitals.
The Western Cape also remains the only province to have a chronic medication dispensing unit. It packs medication for collection by nearly 200 000 patients at clinics.
The province’s DA administration is extending this project to deliver medication to people’s homes and to less congested government facilities, such as old-age homes.
The project was launched about 10 years ago when the ANC controlled the province, under Ebrahim Rasool.
The ANC maintains that while the Khayelitsha and Mitchells Plain hospitals have been delivered under the DA administration, planning for these projects was begun by the ANC before it lost the province in the 2009 elections.
Other contested projects include the renovations to the Vredenburg and Worcester hospitals and the upgrade to the oncology unit at the Red Cross Children’s Hospital.
The Mitchells Plain and Khayelitsha hospitals have been criticised recently, with communities and advocacy groups, including the Treatment Action Campaign, citing poor services and bad staff attitudes.
Poor services at the two hospitals have been ascribed to high bed occupancy rates, overflowing emergency units, the lack of specialised services such as high-care units, and shortages of staff.
The latest assessment of government performance by the Department of Performance Monitoring and Evaluation – named the Management Perfomance Assessment Tool – found the Western Cape performed better in several areas than other provinces.
The report showed that the Departments of Health in the Western Cape and North West were alone among the nine in achieving unqualified audits in 2012/13.
The 2011/12 report attributed the lack of progress in other provinces to “weak asset management and supply chain management in provinces”.
Also, the score of 73 percent of various departments in the Western Cape were compliant with regulatory requirements of governance and accountability.
The province also performed substantially better than other provinces in the key area of financial management, the assessment found. - Cape Argus