Over the past decade, “crisis” has been used to describe the provision of public health services in SA. But it would be unfair to describe the entire system as crisis-ridden. Certain sectors of the system are approaching a dysfunctional state while in others achievements have been made.
For some years now, a string of research reports have pointed to various crises in the health sector. In 2016 an Econex report warned that the number of doctors available was half the average in a middle-income country. The Office of Health Standards Compliance concluded in a 2016 study that most public hospitals were not functioning even close to adequate levels. The Future Health Index ranked SA last among 19 nations in a global survey that measured healthcare system efficiency. ….more