Health and safety is of the utmost importance for any company or institution to be
successful. There is quite a negative perception regarding the health and safety
of rural hospitals and clinics.
Rural hospitals are most of the time overcrowded due the large amount of
patients that has no medical aid, thus increases the risk for health and safety
issues. Patients sit in long queues for hours to receive medical attention and their
medication and are therefore exposed to all kinds of diseases, which is a high
risk for these patients’s health.
The employees working in these rural areas are also exposed to life-threatening
diseases on a daily basis and have a good chance of being infected. Employees
leave the public sector because of these unsafe working conditions and find
themselves either working in the private sector or may even immigrate to foreign
countries for better and safer working conditions.
During this research done, there were a few shortcomings identified for the
management to improvement on and to ensure a safe working environment.
There are quite a lot of negativities surrounding the patients and employees in
these rural hospitals, because patients get raped by nurses, babies get stolen
from maternity wards, doctors are attacked by patients and much more horrific
incidents happening in these hospitals.
Cultural differences are also a main concern for management, because there are
a lot of different races working together in the same department and not
everyone has the same beliefs and ways in doing tasks. These cultural
differences may lead to clashes amongst employees and result in a negative
working environment. This quantitative research was done in selected rural hospitals, due to cost and
time consumption. Only 80 employees (doctors, nurses and pharmacists)
participated in the research done and the research was not an in-depth research,
but enough evidence was compiled to make the necessary assumptions that all
is not well in the public sector.
With the new National Health Insurance (NHI) to be implemented from 2012,
there may a lot of changes in the rural hospitals for the better. Hospitals all over
the country are being upgraded and the working conditions are being attended to
by the government which may attract more health professional to rural hospitals
and clinics. / Thesis (MBA)--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2012
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:nwu/oai:dspace.nwu.ac.za:10394/8437 |
| Date | January 2011 |
| Creators | Scott, Gordon Livingstone Stanley |
| Publisher | North-West University |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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