Barbara Hogan continues to impress as minister of health and her latest move to ensure quality services from her department will win her even more accolades.

Barbara Hogan continues to impress as minister of health and her latest move to ensure quality services from her department will win her even more accolades.

She has just appointed a committee that will advise her on quality, safety and standards, and suggest policies for the department.

So here we have a caring health minister with a strong background in management who goes out of her way to draw in help from specialists and beneficiaries alike to help turn around her dysfunctional department.

What a change from recent days when Manto Tshabalala-Msimang seemed determined to run the healthcare system into the ground from a denialist ivory tower somewhere in Cloud Cuckooland the other side of Pretoria.

The poor people of South Africa who depend on the department for their constitutionally guaranteed rights to healthcare are beginning to notice a difference. So are the overworked and underpaid staff who must often provide critical services under almost impossible conditions.

In a few short months the workaholic no-nonsense minister is proving that where there is the will we South Africans will find a way and that one determined person working hand in hand with her constituents can help provide the services we have been promised for so long.