Professor Lucy Gilson scooped the prestigious international Virchow Prize. She chats to Biénne Huisman about her upbringing, unexpected dive into the world of public health, and shares her thoughts on National Health Insurance. She says it will take more than money to fix our health system.
Inside the Falmouth building at the University of Cape Town’s (UCT) health campus in Observatory, Professor Lucy Gilson leans back in her chair. Dressed in jeans, her demeanour is casual; her sentences thoughtful and precise. She’s explaining how the health system works and opportunities for improving it.
Head of the Health Policy and Systems Division at UCT, Gilson says health systems consist of several building blocks – for example financing, human resource planning and drug availability – and also the individuals, relationships and routines that bind these.
It is this focus on the human element that makes Gilson’s academic work so immediately relevant to what is happening in health systems today. ….more