M.Com. (Business Management) / It is a well established fact that the majority of South Africans do not have access to health of a satisfactory quality, and that many have almost no effective access to health care at all. Health care in South Africa today can be characterised as being both inequitable and inefficient. It is inequitable as particular groups enjoy privileged access to health care, whereas others do not have any access at all and it is inefficient because of the existence of over treatment in the private sector and fragmentation in the public sector (Picard, 1992:1). In 1987, according to the best calculations available, South Africa spent R9,2 billion on health care. This figure amounted to 5,8 percent of the Gross National Product (GNP) for that year (De Beer & Broornberg, 1990:1). The private sector accounted for 44 percent of expenditure that year, yet supplied health care to 20 percent of the South African population. On the other hand, the remaining 80 percent of the population had to rely on the public sector where just 56 percent of the total expenditure was located (De Beer & Broornberg, 1990:1). It is clear that the pUblic sector is unable to provide adequate health care for 80 percent of the population on the money presently available. This inability to provide services in the public sector has arisen from fragmentation and duplication of facilities, excessively bureaucratic management structures, undue emphasis on expensive curative care, high technology tests and interventions at the expense of providing basic health services. In addition to this, the public sector has been significantly underfunded. This can be supported by the above figures that show that 3,3 percent of the GNP is spent on public sector health care and this figure is well below the 5 percent target set by the World Health Organisation as a minimum standard ,(De Beer & Broomberg, 1990:1).
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:uj/uj:11410 |
| Date | 04 June 2014 |
| Creators | Swart, Jane Margaret |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Rights | University of Johannesburg |
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