Attention broadcasters: English soundbite from MPP Deidré Baartman attached.
The Western Cape Department of Health and Wellness has revealed, through a written parliamentary question I posed, that they spent R398 114 000 on home-based care – known as Community Based Services (CBS) – for the 2022/23 financial year. This budget was used to provide 4 529 020 instances of CBS to patients in the Cape Town metro, as well as 2 813 356 instances in rural areas within the Western Cape, totalling almost 7.4 million instances across the Western Cape province.
It must be noted that home-based care is not included in the National Treasury’s Provincial Equitable Share (PES) formula as part of the healthcare component, through which the National Government determines how much money is transferred from national revenue to each province.
CBS are provided to patients in their own home, at work or in a community learning or social environment. CBS services include:
- Community entry and engagement
- Maternal and newborn health
- Child and adolescent health
- Healthy adults and elderly health
- Sexual and Reproductive Health
MPP Deidré Baartman says: “The Western Cape Government has shown a commitment to taking services to the people. The Department of Health and Wellness spent R400 million on making sure that those in the province who cannot visit our clinics or hospitals to receive care, like our Ouma’s or Gogo’s, are not forgotten.
It is frankly immoral that the Western Cape receives no funding for home-care, from National Treasury. These services matter, whether they are administered in a provincial health facility or at home, and National Treasury must recognise this, and adjust the Provincial Equitable Share formula immediately. A society can be measured by how it treats its elderly citizens and in the Western Cape the DA will fight for our ‘Oumas’/’Gogo’s’ to be counted. The DA in the Western Cape will continue fighting to make sure our residents get the level of care they deserve, and that they are not short-changed by the ANC in National Government.”