‘We all worked together to fight Covid’
Though coronavirus has brought destruction and anguish to many lives and livelihoods, the deadly pandemic has proved that the Gauteng government functioned at its best through collaborations with local municipalities, civil society and business community.
Gauteng Premier David Makhura highlighted this in his recent State of the Province Address, saying Covid-19 has seen his government work together with other stakeholders "in a way that has never been seen before" to improve service delivery to save lives and livelihoods.
"The province has established innovative, agile, and adaptive governance structures which ensured that there is a coordinated response to Covid-19 from national, provincial to local government level.
"Provincial and local government are now working together in a way never seen before, bringing us closer to the ideal governance model of a City Region," he said.
Makhura said his government's response to the coronavirus pandemic was informed by scientific advice, with an emphasis on data-driven and evidence-based decisionmaking.
"As policy makers, we understood the specific trajectory of the pandemic in our province and further enhanced our Covid-19 response in dealing with hot spots and in communicating key messages to the public.
"Close interactions and collective interventions with trade unions, business, the faith-based sector, civil society and the ward-based war rooms also helped to raise awareness in hotspots and ensure compliance; and address teething problems of PPE supply."
The provincial government used the response to the pandemic to create additional capacity in the public health system.
Instead of creating field hospitals, Gauteng added new wards in existing hospitals which will be used post Covid-19.
"We have expanded the capacity of the public healthcare system with 4265 new functional beds and 4992 posts created and filled between April 2020 and January 2021. Another 1425 beds are in the final stages of being made functional and operational with additional staffing from the start of the new financial year. This is a significant long term investment that will outlive the COVID-19 pandemic. What is important is to improve patient care, clinical outcomes, meet the ideal clinic standards and prepare the health care system for the NHI," he said.
His words came as the province last week started a vaccination programme in the battle against coronavirus.
"We must also say that without equivocation that vaccines constitute the decisive weapon against pandemics. The vaccination plan has to be rolled out urgently and massively to save lives and enable the economy to recover fully," he said.
"We intend to vaccinate 67% (10.4 million people) of Gauteng’s population. We call on the people of our province to get ready to vaccinate in large numbers. Vaccines save lives," he said.
He, however, warned that though there was Covid-19 vaccination programme currently underway and infection rate numbers were steadily declining, there was a big possibility of a deadlier third wave.
"In other words, we need to stop thinking that we will return to the old ways of doing things. We have to build pandemic-proof and disaster-ready institutions and systems as we embrace 'the new normal',” he said.
The premier paid tribute to essential services workers who have been tirelessly working around the clock risking their lives to save lives.
"We commend thousands of essential workers such as the police, security officers, public servants, the military, agricultural workers, energy workers and workers in retail shops who kept the country going under difficult conditions of lockdown," he said.