Newsletter No2

December 2015

People | Projects |Policy Development

People

RuReSA News

Maryke Bezuidenhout nearly

disappeared in Nepal when
the earthquakes hit.
Fortunately she is alive to tell
the tale.

Hello Rural Colleague!

Jana Muller (Stellenbosch

University) adopted a baby.
Congratulations Jana! Jana is
working on developing the
research links for us.
Anthea Brinkman from UCT
and Lebogang Maseko from
WITS joined EXCO in
September. Sadly we have lost
Thandi Conradie EC due to
her staffing problems in 2016.

Projects
Rural Mental Health Campaign
The amazing Shannon Morgan
(EC) worked tirelessly with her
team to produce the
impressive RMHC Report 2015
(kindly funded by RHAP).
Reflecting that rural mental
health care services are still
largely inadequate due to the
lack of service availability and
a c c e s s i b i l i t y, b u d g e t a r y
constraints, drugs shortages,
insufficient human resource
capacity, a lack of integrated
care, as well as stigma and
discrimination.

Rural Rehab SA

Goodies we are have for you!

At last we have leaflets available on the web site and
printed copies for you:

Information on RuReSA

When to Refer to Rehab (for your colleagues)

available in January

Hi Students and Have a Rural Gap Year

The Rural Mental Health Report 2015

We have started a Student & Com Serv page on the

web and are looking for ideas from com servs to make
this a useful site for them.
Electronic Library: we are working with the partners to
develop an electronic library in 2016. In the meantime
you can have access to our Drop Box library in 2016.

Whats in a name?
WHO is proposing a paradigm shift redefining
assistive technology as Assistive Health
Technology (AHT) and assistive products as
Assistive Health Products (AHP). The current gap
in access to assistive products will be magnified in
the future by the immense projected population
growth, especially as the number of older people
worldwide increases from 841 million in 2013
(11.7% of the worlds population) to more than 2
billion (21.1%) by 2050(4). Medicines alone cannot
solve this new emerging challenge We need to
open the GATE Global cooperation on
Assistive Health Technology

Newsletter No2

Policy
The Strategic Plan and
Framework for Disability and
Rehabilitation was formally
presented by Prof M Freeman at
the Joint National Rehab Forum
5-7 August 2015. Maluta
Tshivhase set the priority as
developing the Human
Resources plan by 2016. All the
p ro f e s s i o n s a g re e d t o t h e
Midlevel Worker as key for the
PHC team!
Inputs have been requested on
the job descriptions for private
therapists to be employed in the
NHI sites. We all said why is
there money for this and not for
frozen posts
or transport for
existing staff to go to clinics?

Policies Up for Review:

Service level Agreements for

all professions.
The District Hospital Package

2002 .
The Draft General Comment

no. 4 Article 24. The right to

inclusive education

Events:
Rural Health Conference in
Grahamstown 6-9 August 2016
Theme "Rural Health
20/20...through the looking glass
of the past, the present and the
future.
Send us your ideas for the
conference!

December 2015

Lifetime Achievement
in Rehabilitation
Dr Pam McLaren (OT)
from DART, KZN, received
this Award from RuReSA
at the Rural Health
Conference 2015. Yes that
is her ancient Willard &
Spackman book found in
Manguzi OT Dept.

Is your Google
Group access working?
Some members have reported that they get the Daily
Digest from the Google group but cant open any of the
links to see the full information. Please check your links
and let us know if you have the same problem so we can
sort it out.

Find some Friends of RuReSA

Do you know someone who could be a Friend
of RuReSA? These are people that support what we do
but dont want to be a member. We would like them to
Like us on Facebook! Friends will get to hear about the
work we do via Facebook. So get people to Like
www.facebook.com/ruresa!

Research Box
Kate Sherry wrote Chapter 7 in the SA Health Review
2014-15: Disability and rehabilitation: Essential
considerations for equitable, accessible and povertyreducing health care in South Africa
Let us know what research you need and we will try and
find it or put it on the Rural Research Agenda we need
to start building. Even better - send us your research!
We are going to survey the 2015 community service
therapists this month!

Rural Rehab SA