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South Africa 's Public Healthcare System Adequately Servicing The Population? Essay

Decent Essays

Research question:
Is South Africa’s public healthcare system adequately servicing the population?

Aims of the research:
The research is aimed at determining the number of people that use public healthcare in South Africa and to assess whether the public hospitals and clinics adequately serve these people. It also looks at the costs at public hospitals and whether government spends adequately to subsidise health and medical care. It further assesses whether the number of trained medical personnel meets the requirements of the people seeking medical care.

Literature review:
Research was carried out across various pieces of literature to identify the key areas that need to be assessed to conclude on the research question.
As identified by the article “Healthcare in South Africa” (2013), South Africa’s healthcare system has two separate sectors, namely the private sector and the public sector. The private healthcare sector is relatively small compared to the public sector. The private sector offers high quality medical care that can match a number of European countries, however the cost is significantly high and therefore, makes it out of reach of the average South African citizen.
A similar titled article “Healthcare in South Africa” (2012), states that the government contributes 40% of the public healthcare sector’s expenditure. Despite this, the public health sector is responsible for providing medical services to approximately 80% of the population and is therefore under

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