Letter to minister -NCDs strategic plan implementation & resourcing

The SANCDA’s founding partners ask the Minister of Health, Dr Joe Phaahla, to work together to solve the NCD epidemic sent  19 April 2023. Still awaiting a response. From 2013 until today, the SANCDA has never received a written response from its political leadership or executive officials.
Summary of contents

  • Annexure A: SANCDA members, allies, and partners.
  • Annexure B: List of policy requiring coordination and update by date and government Department
  • Annexure C: Contextualisaton of NDOH NCDS+ subprogramme allocations (1010-2026) with the Health Promotion Leavy and & HIV NPOs
SANCDA Letter to Minister Apr 2023 and annexures A B C
? NCDs  outcomes NDoH March 2023?

? NCDs outcomes NDoH March 2023?

NCDs related outcomes for APP 202s/2023

NCDs are a neglected priority in the National Department of Health (NDoH) Annual Performance Plan 2022/23 (APP) which expires at the end of March. Only 4 /18 outcomes in programme 3 are NCD-related.

The bottom 2 rows in the table, require the re-development of national policies for mental health and obesity.  Transparency and an inclusive  process are problematic.
Our Constitution calls for the meaningfu involvement of civil society and people living with NCDs. Together these conditions impact millions of South Africans and place increasing burden on the health system.
It would also be great to see the reviews of the existing policies which should come before a new policy.

The NCDs+ National Strategic Plan 2022-2027, launched in May 2023, (see the top row in the table) Implying that the provinces will have be close to publishing the impemetion plans for obesity, diabetes and hypertension. I know there is lots hard work getting the plans ready. The Medium-Term Strategic Framework 2019-24 makes it clear that NCDs budgets and  implementation must happend in at the sumbnational or provinical level.

 

Coming soon NCDs+ national strategy

Coming soon NCDs+ national strategy

 

Celebration time. It’s happening on 31 May 2022 in Somerset East, Eastern Cape, as part of a World No Tobacco Day event. At last, the NCDs+ civil society can breathe a collective sigh of relief. IT is the long-awaited National Department of Health’s (NDOH) NCDs+ policy for 5 years until 2027. The about-to-launched plan is a compromise, but it is way better than the early drafts. As Churchill may have said, “we are at the end of the beginning”.

If the SANCDA+ had left the NDoH decision makers to their own devices, the 3rd NCDs+ National Strategic Plan (NSP) would have been done and dusted in 2019 without credible transparency and authored mainly by a WHO Country Office appointed contractor. And that version looked remarkably similar to the previous failed 2nd NCDs plan 2013-2017. That plan wasn’t funded, implemented and only externally reviewed/evaluated in 2021.

Yes, it is the SANCDA+ activism that put a spanner in the works. Our early enthusiastic cooperation soured as it became clear that the plan would never be implemented or funded. It moved the SANCDA+ from advocacy to activism using similar tactics as HIV activists in the early part of this century. Memories are short but what is good for the goose is good for the gander.

What is different about the 3rd NCDs+ NSP? (more…)

COVID-19 comorbidities uncovered NCDs = 90%

Better late than never. And it is only until October last year. Comorbidities are published once and not routinely by NICD. Oh now, the second wave is over “we will publish another list.” Really?

This requires some myth-busting action from the National Department of Health. I am tired of the comorbidities listed in media interviews by NDoH officials as going in this order: HIV, TB and more recently malaria (really). Then perhaps diabetes…. take a look and weep.
Shame

Read pages 6 onwards in the NICD Covid report