The Gert Sibande District Municipality (GSDM) recently hosted a health summit at its offices and brought together experts and interested parties within the field of environmental health.
The summit was held under the theme, “Promoting human health through provision of accessible, community-driven, excellent, equitable and quality Municipal Health Services”.
It was the first of its kind in the history of Municipal Health Services in GSDM and was successful in capturing the attention of community representatives, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), academics, industry and government officials.
Interested parties shared information on best practices and discussed solutions to the municipal health services challenges facing the region.
The municipal health and environmental function is centralised in GSDM, with a number of municipal health practitioners dispatched around the district, mainly in the local municipalities.
On the first day of the summit, the Executive Mayor of GSDM, Mr Muzi Chirwa, handed over a fleet of vehicles to the environmental health inspectors to improve accessibility and visibility in the local municipalities.
This was done in an effort to arm the municipal health services with resources to enable GSDM to positively respond to municipal health challenges facing the community, such as the burning issues of food safety.
Through the summit, GSDM is now in a better position to achieve the following:
• To strengthen the support and development of local municipalities through provision of improved Municipal Health Services.
• Promote and strengthen governance and oversight in provision of Municipal Health Services.
• Lead the Municipal Health Services through community driven scientific research.
• Promote the knowledge of Municipal Health Services through coordination and partnership with key stakeholders.
• Increase stakeholder, community participation and partnership in Municipal Health policy implementation.
• Coordinate the alignment of government related services to support excellent Municipal Health Service delivery.
