No abstract available. / Thesis (M.T.R.P.)-University of Natal, Durban, 2001.

International mass sports gatherings like the FIFA (Federation Internationale de Football Association) World Cup Soccer and Olympics can cause great challenges to local healthcare systems and emergency medical services. History has shown that disasters do occur during these events, whether on a small or large scale. Disaster Management Practitioners from the public health perspective widely recognize that poor planning and a range of other underlying factors, create conditions of vulnerability. These result in insufficient capacity or measures to reduce hazards’ potentially negative consequences. The eThekwini District has to be prepared in the event of a mass disaster. Pre-empting and planning for disasters will lead to the safety and security of our citizens. The aim of this study was to undertake a baseline survey (in a total number of eleven public sector hospitals) to assess the state of hospital readiness, medical preparedness, and emergency care in preparation for the 2010 FIFA World Cup Soccer in the eThekwini District. A general assessment tool in the form of a standard questionnaire, and a walkthrough visit with a checklist, was used to collect data. There is no previous study conducted at the eThekwini District to assess requirements for an international event in terms of a mass disaster. South Africa is a developing country, and this was the first time any developing country had hosted a sporting event on such a large magnitude thus there are no international standards on sports disaster management by any other developing countries to generalise to eThekwini District. The current disaster management operational plan that is being used for the World Cup is based on a United Kingdom integrated management philosophy tool. The study herein adopted a public health approach and incorporates the Yokohama Strategy within its tool along with the use of HMIMMS and MIMMS in the assessment of the clinical criteria. The perceived minimum requirements suggested by the hospitals and a Provincial Task Team, from the Provincial Health Disaster Management office, was used as a guideline. The study showed that although disaster plans and policies are in situ, there still exists a need for resources to be directed toward skills training, attraction and retention of healthcare professionals, revitalisation of emergency and theatre areas and the commissioning of more isolation units. The results of the study would enable the District Office to note any shortcomings and lack of resources in public sector hospitals. The study outcome would be important for the implementation of any strategic planning to aid the hospitals in preparation for mass disasters that may occur during the 2010 FIFA World Cup Soccer. / Thesis (M.Med.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2010.

In March 1999 the former Durban Metropolitan Council embarked on several pilot studies to test the applicability of some early thinking around a new Land Use Management System with the aim of casting a single and uniform approach to managing and controlling the development of land and buildings within the municipal area. The studies were necessary as post 1994 the municipality and many other municipalities across the Province had inherited fragmented, unequal and incoherent planning systems, which were developed under apartheid. One of such pilot areas is Cliffdale where new land use management approaches were applied to a semi-rural area through the adoption of a new Land Use Scheme. The aim of this dissertation is to evaluate these approaches that were applied to the Cliffdale Land Use Scheme, given that it is 5 years old and new frameworks, ideas and practices have been developed over this period. At the time of compiling the pilot scheme, there were also limited datasets and information available to inform the developing of the new approaches. Subsequent to this pilot study, a similar Provincial wide initiative was launched which resulted in the preparation of a Land Use Management System Manual in 2001. The aim of the manual is to guide municipalities towards applying a uniform approach to land use management and the preparation of municipal Land Use Schemes. The Manual was further reviewed in 2004. This dissertation also looks at the success of the Cliffdale Land Use Scheme in comparison to the existing Town Planning Scheme model and the new Provincial Land Use Management System. In order to achieve this, interviews were conducted with key people who have experience in the new land use management system. Theoretical research was undertaken on other case studies, precedents and new data sets and information. Findings indicated that the new land use management approaches are an improvement to the current Town Planning Scheme model. The approaches however can be further improved through the availability of new datasets, information and concepts that have emerged from other case studies and precedents. / Thesis (M.T.R.P.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, 2005.

No abstract available. / Thesis (M.T.R.P.)-University of Natal, Durban, 2002.

This thesis set out to examine the application of the supporter paradigm in the incremental housing process in South Africa, and the way support for housing consolidation has been orchestrated in practice. It aimed to determine the forms of housing support that constitute preconditions of housing consolidation in the South African low income housing context. The supporter paradigm upon which post-apartheid housing policy is based takes its cue from the proponents of self-help housing, and the institutions that have entrenched it internationally. It outlines the housing support actions that would enable poor households to achieve housing adequacy incrementally . In South Africa, such households would constitute housing subsidy beneficiaries, seeking to achieve housing 'depth' through the process of housing consolidation, where the national subsidy programme would primarily only have delivered housing 'width' , or housing starts. Contrary to the expectations of the policy, the pace of housing consolidation has been slow, and the standard of the resultant housing poor. The thesis ' point of departure is that households which have not improved their dwellings, or whose improvement efforts have only yielded temporary housing, continue to experience housing inadequacy, despite subsidy support. This outcome contradicts the policy 's goal of enabling households to reach housing adequacy. That subsidy support is but one of a number of supports needed to enable housing consolidation is acknowledged by current policy. This study critiques the way support has been lent to households in consolidating situations conceptually and empirically. Conceptually, the study analyses the international and South African policy discourse around the support approach to housing delivery, as well as looks at some precedents in housing support practice internationally for useful lessons. Empirically, the study makes use of qualitative and quantitative research instruments to examine and analyse the housing support experience in three different types of incremental housing projects, located in eThekwini municipality, in the KwaZulu Natal Province of South Africa . The housing support findings are analysed within the context of what both the housing policy and the study 's key informants consider to be a holistic packaging of housing support, that should be attendant to any incremental housing project. On the basis of the study's findings, housing support practice is critiqued on two levels. At policy level, the study reveals that the foundation of South African housing policy in a neoliberal context, in the absence of support targeted at improving the incomes of the mainly very poor beneficiaries, sets them up for failure in their housing improvement efforts. At the implementation level, the study identifies three key areas of weakness. Firstly, there is absence of strategic direction at the National level, resulting in the treatment of housing support as an optional function by the housing implementation levels. Secondly, most housing authorities experience difficulty in understanding what housing support entails, because of its multifaceted nature and lack of specificity . Consequently, the support attendant to incremental housing projects is ad hoc and intermittent in nature, and is delivered on the basis of how the particular authorities or project staff understand housing support. As a result, in any given project, housing support is rarely comprehensively packaged. It is also largely an unfunded mandate. Thirdly, at project level, the thesis establishes that many of the problems that confront consolidating households can be attributed to projects that are poorly planned from the outset, and that support in this regard lies in the development of capacity at municipal level, to plan projects that have the potential to be consolidated in the first instance. As its main contribution, the thesis develops a multidimensional, comprehensive framework for packaging housing support. One dimension specifies upfront, the support elements considered important in the pre- and post-subsidy phases of the project, as well as in the project implementation phase. The exact form these would take in any project would be informed by the project and beneficiary characteristics. The second dimension packages the institutional roles for housing support, thereby removing the institutional ambivalence towards the housing support function, and specifying the institutional and role changes needed to enable housing support to occur. The third dimension packages support according to project type, indicating which forms of support apply to all types of projects, and which to specific modes of delivery in the South African context. The study concludes that while current housing policy is clear on the need to support households to meet consolidation goals, specificity of both process and actions needs to be lent to housing support practice. The multidimensional support package developed by the study is deemed a useful tool in providing such specificity, and clarifying how support for housing consolidation in South Africa should be set up in both policy and practice. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2008.

The eThekwini Municipality is facing two major challenges in controlling odorous emissions by various industries in the South Durban Basin; firstly, getting industry to manage their onsite odorous emissions and, secondly regulating these odorous emissions. This study focused on the Jacobs’s Industrial Complex (JIC) which comprises various industries releasing air emissions which impact on the local air quality. The impact of these emissions is supported by the number of odour complaints reported to the eThekwini Environmental Health Department by the public. Cleaner production (CP) is an integrated approach aimed at continuously reducing environmental impacts of processes, products and services through applying preventive approaches rather than controlling and managing pollution once it has been created. This dissertation has assessed the application of CP as a concept to prevent and reduce emissions of odours by industries in the JIC that are an impacting on the environment and neighbouring communities. Three CP case studies are analysed to demonstrate the applicability of the approach. These are a CP project for drum reprocessing company based in the South Durban Basin and two waste minimisation clubs which operated from 1998 to 2000 in Durban. The key findings, outcomes, experiences and lessons learnt from these case studies underpin the recommendation of an approach that can be applied by eThekwini Municipality to incorporate CP in the scheduled trade (ST) permitting of odour producing industries. This research has applied a multi-case study design implying both qualitative and quantitative approaches. A qualitative approach was used in the detailed analyses of case studies whilst the quantitative one was applied in the graphical analyses of the odour complaints statistics for the JIC. The study concludes by drawing two major recommendations from the lessons leant. Recommendation 1: The general CP strategy that can be applied by eThekwini Municipality in regulating, promoting, enforcing, monitoring and evaluating application of CP practices among stakeholders. The recommended objectives for the general strategy include: · Enforcement of uniform regulatory standards. · Development of a policy or guidelines. · Effective compliance monitoring and enforcement. · Develop a local Cleaner Production Centre (LCPC). · Ensure co-operative governance. · Provide adequate financial resources. · Monitoring and evaluation. Recommendation 2: Strategy for incorporating CP in the ST permitting of odour producing industries. It is recommended that the ST permit holder for an odour producing industry comply with the following: · Prioritisation of odour like the other priority pollutants. · Industry to perform an audit to map odour emitting areas. · Permit holder to development a CP based odour management plan. · Investigate possible CP projects that can be undertaken to prevent and mitigate odour emissions. · Incorporate an odour management plan into a 5 year environmental improvement plan. · Develop and appropriately manage an odour complaints management system. · Set odour management performance indicators and baselines for targets and reporting. · The permit holder should include odour management performance including odour complaints management in the annual report. / Thesis (M.Sc.Eng.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2011.

Magister Public Health - MPH / Background: Human Immune Deficiency Virus (HIV) is a public health challenge worldwide. Antiretroviral therapies (ART) are medications that treat HIV virus infection by suppressing the virus and stopping progression of HIV disease, and that improve quality of life. People initiated on ART need to adhere to their treatment for the rest of their lives. In 2016, there were 7,1 million people (age 15-49) in South Africa living with HIV, representing 19 % of the global HIV burden, with 56% of the adults on ART. Life expectancy of South Africans for both males and females improved between 2009 and 2011 because of ART treatment. People lost to follow up while on ART compromise their own health and the long term positive benefits of the ART regimen, and hence there is a growing emphasis to improve the retention of people who are already on treatment. Aim: This study was conducted examining HIV positive South African Clothing and Textile Workers Union (SACTWU) members who are currently on ART treatment and had previously been lost to follow up (LTFU) from ART care. The study aimed to explore factors associated with LTFU of clients on ART treatment and care among the South African Clothing and Textile Union members living with HIV and attending the SACTWU Worker Health Program Clinic.

Land use management and development control play an important role in achieving integration and sustainability in developing societies such as South Africa today. Town Planning Schemes are generally used as a tool for achieving this by making provision for land uses that are freely permitted, permitted by special consent or prohibited, thereby ensuring that incompatible land uses are not allowed. However, these town planning schemes are interpreted by different officials, with different levels of planning experience and qualification, as well as different opinions in the interpretation, which can result in inconsistency in decision-making and subsequent development patterns. The aim of this dissertation is therefore to investigate a range of special consent applications, the decision-making process applied to them and the applicability of any conditions attached thereto. The spatial focus of this dissertation is the South Municipal Planning Region of the Ethekwini Municipality which was established during the 2000 demarcation process. Inherent is this amalgamation is the fact that there are now thirty eight different town planning schemes in the Municipal area, with nine of them found in the South Municipal Planning Region. / Thesis (M.T.R.P.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2008.

Disabled people live in a complex world encompassing the same interests and desires that motivate the balance of the earth's population. We have always known this, but as is often the case, society often plans without considering the needs of disabled people. Progress toward the acceptance of disabled persons as total human beings has not come about because equality is not a reality for disabled people. A point of departure for this research is therefore that disablement is a relation to the surrounding world, not a static phenomenon. It should perhaps be emphasized that this “relation” applies not only to the physical but also social environment. It is hoped that this study will demonstrate the inequalities that disabled people have to contend with, with reference to services such as housing, transportation, education, employment and recreational opportunities. The attitudes, value judgments and expectations of society and the disabled themselves contribute to the creation or breakdown of barriers to full participation and equality. It is recommended that a great deal more be done to achieve the equality that disabled individuals so rightly deserve especially in regard to the promotion of self-dependent life leading to enhanced quality of living. / Thesis (M.T.R.P.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2008.

Small, Medium and Micro Enterprises (SMMEs) are considered to be the engines of growth of any economy. In the light of recent economic events and the recession that is surging rapidly across the globe, more and more attention is being focused on SMME development and support. Whilst there are a number of organisations (both public and private) which provide support to SMMEs within the eThekwini Municipality Area (EMA), the overall impacts of these initiatives on SMME growth and development is minimal and there is a dearth of studies that critically examine business support services for SMMEs which the public and private sectors provided. One of the major reasons for this minimal impact is the lack of communication and coordination between various service providers which often results in fragmentation and duplication of services. This study analyses the support measures offered to SMMEs not only from the perspective of the SMMEs themselves but also examines the perspectives of service providers from both the public and private sectors. This study is also placed within a multi-disciplinary conceptual framework which includes the political economy approach, neoliberalism, the public-private-sector debate and empowerment theories with specific reference to the South African context. This study is unique in that it analyses SMME development and support within the EMA from various perspectives within a single study. The objectives of this study were to investigate the awareness and experiences of SMMEs with regards to their support and development and also to critically examine the attitudes and perceptions of service providers (both public and private) towards SMME development and support. In addition, this study sought to assess the capacity of both the private and public sectors to provide effective support and development to SMMEs. An additional objective of this study was to determine the value placed on support measures by determining SMMEs’ willingness to pay for services provided, but more importantly to determine the attitudes of the public and private sectors towards the payment for services offered. Both qualitative and quantitative methods were adopted. In terms of the latter, quantitative surveys were conducted with 250 SMMEs who attended various fairs and conferences held across the EMA. Semi-structured interviews (qualitative approach) were conducted with representatives from the private and public sectors that provide support or services to the SMMEs in the EMA. In this regard, 53 representatives from the public sector and 50 from the private sector were interviewed. The analysis was undertaken thematically and, where relevant, findings pertaining to the different stakeholders interviewed were compared and discussed. Some of the key findings indicate that SMME respondents were more aware of local government and the services they provide than any other tier of government. Furthermore, SMME respondents within the study did not fully grasp the concept of Business Development Services (BDS) and the associated benefits for their business. SMMEs rely heavily on government to provide services free of charge. The main finding is that private sector service providers are better qualified, positioned and trained to provide BDS than the public sector whose main roles should be that of regulator, facilitator and promoter. Whilst government has been a strong proponent of SMME development and support since 1994, this study presents a strong case for the increased role of the private sector. In addition, this study also motivates that local government through their Municipalities can play a significant role in SMME development and support in partnership with the private sector. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2009.