Magister Commercii - MCom / The South African democratic government is mandated by the constitution to provide quality
healthcare services to the citizens of the country. Therefore, healthcare in South Africa is
considered as a basic human right. The existing healthcare system exhibits extreme inequality,
which translates into inequity in health outcomes across different demographic factors. Even
though quality healthcare is a basic human right, problems related to the quality of healthcare
remain, which poses a major challenge for the South African government.
This dissertation investigates patient perceptions of the quality of public healthcare in South
Africa, using General Household Survey data (2009-2016), with the objective of determining
the level and trends of patient satisfaction and complaints reported when accessing public
healthcare services in South Africa and identifying the correlates of these perception.
This study found that patient satisfaction with public healthcare services in South Africa has
increased over time while complaints have decreased over time. This study refrains from
drawing conclusion on these findings at face value, since they may be other factors that explain
the observed trends. The most common complaint was long waiting time at public healthcare
facilities. On average, White individuals, male household heads, individuals residing in rural
areas and individuals from smaller household were more likely to report to being satisfied with
healthcare services received at public healthcare facilities in South Africa. Therefore, patient
satisfaction survey approach should be used in conjunction with other healthcare quality
measures such as direct observation, vignettes and standardised or mystery patient.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:uwc/oai:etd.uwc.ac.za:11394/7047 |
| Date | January 2019 |
| Creators | Ntunta, Asanda |
| Contributors | Christian, Carmen |
| Publisher | University of the Western Cape |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | University of the Western Cape |
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