Boitumelo Tshehle

Boitumelo Tshehle

North West's rural health professionals are getting out - they're moving to other provinces and other countries.

This was said by Nomonde Rasmeni, the province's MEC for health, at the launch of Health Month at Manyane resort last week.

The theme of Health Month is "Invest in health, build a safer future".

Rasmeni urged doctors and nurses to be patriotic and not leave the province.

"They leave rural areas for better opportunities in other areas. This makes rural areas suffer. This is a challenge," Rasmeni said.

She said another challenge faced by her department was the bad state of hospitals in North West.

"Rural communities are still struggling to access proper healthcare. People have to travel long distances to access health facilities," she said.

"We want to close the gap between the communities and the government services, especially with regard to health services.

Rasmeni said she believed that the performance of her department had improved.

"We have spent 91percent of our budget on the implementation of healthcare programmes," she said.

The Department of Health said taverns and hospices were targeted by its HIV-Aids and TB educational campaigns.