Introduction

SOCIAL RESPONSIVENESS

The PHCD convened a workshop on the Social Accountability of Medical and Health Sciences Education in 2010 chaired by an invited expert - Charles Boelen – an international consultant in Health Systems & Personnel and former Coordinator of the WHO Programme of Human Resources for Health. The aim of the workshop was to develop and define indicators of social accountability for medical and health sciences education that are feasible in our context. The expected outcomes of the workshop were a set of feasible indicators that could be used by health science faculties in South Africa for monitoring and evaluation of institutions, faculties and programmes in our context. The workshop looked at the development of global social accountability, reflected upon UCT’s social responsiveness journey, examined the University of Stellenbosch’s Hope Initiative, and explored the indicators for measuring social responsiveness via the CPU (conceptualization, production, usability) Model.

Prof Reid gave input to the health sector chapter of the National Planning Commission in 2011, and is a member of the ministerial National Health Insurance (NHI) Task Team tasked with reviewing the pilot sites and business plans for the NHI. The Western Cape Eden District is receiving some extra attention. He is part of a UWC team that developed a policy for Intermediate Care in the Western Cape which was accepted by the PGWC DoH. The policy provides a framework for the delivery of facility-based services for step-down care, palliative care, chronic care and short-term rehabilitation in the province, collectively referred to as Intermediate Care. The idea is that there should be an intermediate care facility within each sub-district in the province and the project has begun to review the Community-Based Services (CBS) in Eden which involves a review of what community health workers (home-based carers, TB Dots supporters, farm workers) actually do, that will advocate options for a more comprehensive and population-based approach in line with the PHC re-engineering ideas. Prof Reid also chairs the faculty’s Admissions Policy Committee which is under intense pressure every year with more than 5000 applications for a few hundred places. An important objective of the committee is to examine how the profile of the student body can change through appropriate policy changes.
James Irlam is a member of the provincial Health Climate Change Committee; the provincial Climate Change Adaptation Working Group; the national Long Term Adaptation Scenarios Health Sector Expert Group; and the review team on the National Climate Change and Health Adaptation Plan. He presented at the People’s Health Movement Workshop on Climate Change and Health at the National Health Assembly and People’s Health Assembly. He co-convened a provincial workshop on Energy and Health, which culminated in an oral and written submission to the Department of Energy on the public health implications of the Integrated Energy Plan (IEP) and the Integrated Resource Plan 2010. He co-hosted and presented at a workshop on the Health Effects of Climate Change at the annual conference of the Public Health Association of South Africa (PHASA) and published the summary findings of the three provincial Energy and Health workshops in the PHASA newsletter. He addressed meetings of the Centre for Environmental Rights (CER) and the One Million Climate Jobs (OMCJ) campaign about this work. He served as the UCT representative on the CHEER collaboration from 2009 to 2013 and was a member of CHEER Peer Review teams at Wits, Pretoria, and UWC during that time.
Sarah Crawford-Browne is a consultant for the Worcester Hope and Reconciliation Project’s support of survivors and victim-offender dialogue and supported the project in 2013 with conceptualizing a victim-offender dialogue between Stefaans Coetzee and survivors of the 1996 Shoprite bomb. She has strategized responses to violent or traumatic situations in Sudan, Congo-Brazzaville, and two local situations. Ms Crawford-Browne contributed to Victim Empowerment Policy, the CSIR’s safer city / safer province project and led the Action for a Safer South Africa’s Victim Support Strategy. Through five rounds of consultations, she contributed as an expert panelist to the Center for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation’s development of an “African Torture Rehabilitation Model” (CSVR publication) in 2013. She has facilitated training in trauma intervention at The Trauma Centre for Survivors of Violence and Torture, and Community Action for a Safer Environment (CASE-Hanover Park), and facilitated staff supervision for CASE (2010-2011) and Catholic Welfare and Development-Trauma Programme (2009-2013), and assessed and guided local projects for financial support by Het Maagdenhuis (Dutch donor organization – 2008 – 2013). She made contributions to publications for lay audiences of the Restitution Foundation and of CASE. In 2011 she gave feedback to a Hanover Park community meeting that was strategizing a ceasefire, on her PhD research regarding the factors that women perceive as influencing violence in Hanover Park, and has contributed to discussions regarding gangsterism, e.g. that facilitated by SaVI in 2013. Ms Crawford-Browne has contributed to UCT’s Safety and Violence Initiative through planning sessions and starting the website.
Johannah Keikelame has partnered with Epilepsy South Africa, St John Ambulance and the Langa Health Committee to use findings from her PhD project to help address problems related to epilepsy. She organized a workshop for 12 traditional healers who were trained by the Epilepsy South Africa Western Cape branch staff and findings from observations were shared with board members of Epilepsy South Africa Western Cape, as well as Vanguard CHC staff, to promote awareness about health literacy factors affecting epilepsy.
The Collaboration for Health Equity through Education and Research (CHEER), chaired by Prof Reid, has been successful in pursuing the theme of social accountability in health sciences education to the next level, including through international collaborations and a successful peer review at the University of Limpopo. The collaboration amongst the 9 partner faculties around the country remains strong and Claudia Naidu’s doctoral thesis will contribute to a longitudinal view of the development of social accountability in medical students and graduates as they progress through the system.
The Rural Students’ Recruitment and Support Project received the attention of the Deanery and the Western Cape DoH offered 13 bursaries for medical students from rural areas of the Western Cape. It builds on the work done by Mandla Masiza and Sipho January and collaborations made with students through the Rural Students Network. The project aims to increase the output of skilled rural graduates which will benefit rural communities by targeting and recruiting the top matric learners from the poorest rural areas to become health professionals; promoting the faculty; supporting learners through mentoring programmes; and assisting them, once in university, to surmount obstacles and graduate successfully.