South African Health System : South Africa

In our world each country has a set of standards to follow in order to establish health care insurance for people in different communities. The state contributes about 40% of all the expenditures on health while the public health sector delivers 80% of the population. Many resources are concentrated in the private health sector. These resources see to the health needs of the remaining 20% of the population. Public health consumes around 11% of the government’s total budget. The way the resources are allotted, and the standard of health care delivered, varies from country to country. Although there are similarities between South Africa and the United States regarding healthcare, South Africa remains at a lower

Providing healthcare coverage to all citizens can be challenging to many countries and only the most developed countries have adequate resources to truly provide universal coverage to their citizens. Still, when coverage and resources are not sufficient, care is rationed through limited supply or limited access. Most countries have mechanisms in place, however, to insure that affordability does not limit access to necessary services.

The residents of Africa are suffering from preventable, treatable, and fatal diseases everyday at a higher rate compared to developed countries. The healthcare crisis in Africa is the primary cause of all these deaths, and includes inefficient healthcare systems. Consequently, African's inefficient healthcare systems results in poor delivery of care and a shortage of health professionals. The healthcare crisis in Africa is a current issue impacting the lives of many African's who don't have the same access to resources as developed countries such as the United States. These resources can save the lives of many African's dying of preventable and curable disease, and understanding why the African continent has little access to them

Health care systems around the world are in a complete and utter mess. Where America, being one of the major powers of the world, is still struggling with the concept of providing free healthcare to its citizens, Britain has been facing problems over provision of healthcare for child development and to women and men living with low income for a long time. Asian and South Asian countries like Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Pakistan and India face severe issues in implementation of health policies due to a large population of the countries living below the poverty line. The African continent is suffering even more with nutritional diseases due to lack of

Community healthcare workers in South Africa are faced with the challenge of providing care for both the community and themselves, while faced with the social determinants of health, which influence their ability to provide adequate care. Community healthcare workers are exposed to emotional, physical and environmental hazards arising from a lack of efficient governance in the healthcare system. In order to establish the influences that prohibit community healthcare workers from providing care, it is imperative to determine the key social determinants as well as the hazards that are created for the individual and the community. In South Africa there is an unequal distribution of wealth amongst the population that arises from the socio-economic status of the individual.

It is a well established fact that all countries must have efficiently organized and managed health financing systems in order to ensure human welfare. Or it can be simply said that without the necessary funds, no health workers will be employed, no medicines would be available nor will any health promotion or prevention activities take place (WHO). However it should also be noted that financing is not merely the generation of funds. It is one of the critical determinants that influence health outcomes in a country. It is mandatory to have a good financing mechanism in place to ensure equity and accessibility as well as to protect the majority of the population from catastrophic health expenditures. Even in a high income country like the United States, cost escalations have put even the basic healthcare inaccessible to several segments of the population, where carefully planned financing arrangements have not been implemented (HLEG Report on UHC 2011).

The positioning of preventative for those in the lower SES requires unlimited moral hazard to increase public health initiatives. With limited moral hazard the economic power begins to compete with the high demands for higher quality of services at the cost of those who are able to afford (Laureate Education, 2012). Those who are able to afford often have health insurance that makes them become desensitized to how often they can use services putting competition in the market that raise the cost of healthcare (Laureate Education, 2012). Therefore, my recommendation to such resolution, if health insurance decides to keep increasing the price elasticity in the demand services more public health funding are freely needed in the lower SES communities. By having, a free flow of financing programs will help to support needed preventative

Furthermore, it is worth noting that the government of South Africa has formulated policies and legislations that go in harmony with the world health organization

Weak public healths systems characterized by inadequate financial and human resources, inefficient support systems, and poorly coordinated responses to public health problems are responsible for the poor performance of the health care system. The Government’s budget allocation to health care, which is currently at 8%, is far short of the 15% target agreed in the Abuja Declaration.2 For example, the number of nurses and doctors per population is 33/100,000 and 17/100,000, respectively, which is below the standard recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO). Kenya will, therefore, fail to

The articles I selected were about the several different options that Africans have when it comes to health care, and how certain factors affect the choice they make in seeking these types of care. The factors that were studied include access factors (user fees and distance), household-level factors (income and socioeconomic status), and individual-level characteristics (age and education). Although the articles vary in method, they are similar in purpose and overall results. The research paper by the African Studies Review argues that how a person responds to sickness and where they choose to seek treatment depends factors such as the disease or illness they are

Worldwide, approximately 1.3 billion people do not have access to affordable and efficient healthcare and out of those who have access, almost 170 million are forced to spend around 40 % of their income on medical treatment (Asante et al,2016).In low and middle income countries (LMICs), the major constraint to the access of healthcare is financial burden, where out-of-pocket payments (OPP) contribute to approximately 50 % of total health expenditure (WHO, 2010). As a result, in these countries there is high probability of many households being pushed into poverty due to high medical expenses (McIntyre,2006).The matter of concern in LMICS is that poor and disadvantaged groups of population do not have access to adequate quality of healthcare.For instance, according to WHO (2010) up to 20 % of women in rich population are more likely to have a birth attended by skilled health worker than a poor woman. Therefore, taking an action to address health inequities faced in these countries would save up to 700,000 women.

As noted, innumerable circumstances make some of the Nigerians lower socioeconomic class live in poverty. They live in a less desirable environment, which is a like breeding ground for diseases and it makes them more susceptible to illness, and when they are sick, they cannot afford to pay for the high medical costs. Multiple researches have confirmed that high cost of medical care prevents the need to accessing healthcare even with hospitals in close proximity. This variation in financial access to healthcare is indeed, an indication for any country to provide funding, policies, health program and national health insurance system.

Demographic trends, While the population has grown from10.6 million in 1990, to approximately 17 million the Malawi health system has struggled to maintain and provide adequate health care to the people

The Republic of South Africa is located on the southern tip of the continent of Africa. It is slightly less than twice the size of Texas, about 1,223,201 square kilometers. Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Swaziland run from west to east along South Africa’s northern border. The country of Lesotho lies entirely within the borders of South Africa and is completely landlocked. The South Atlantic Ocean and the Indian Ocean surround the southern coast. South Africa is divided into nine provinces: the Northern Province, Kwazulu/Natal, Mpumalanga, Gauteng, the North West Province, the Western Cape, the Northern Cape and the Eastern Cape. South Africa also has three capital cities: Pretoria serves as the

In 1994, when South Africa transitioned to a democracy, access to these clinics improved greatly, but the quality of the services they provide has decreased drastically. District hospitals provide the next level of public healthcare, and provide more advanced treatments. Academic hospitals provide advanced diagnostic procedures and treatments, and also serve as training facilities for healthcare providers. Private sector healthcare on the other hand is run on commercial lines and provides services to formally educated white earners making middle to high incomes and medical professionals. These services tend to be members of medical plans, commonly referred to as schemes. Private health care consumes over 50% of total health care spending in South Africa, but is inaccessible to most of the population, and in many cases, highly inefficient. (Neil Söderlund, 1998). In 1995, medical schemes were the main source for financing private health care, covering about 18 % of the population. (Neil Söderlund, 1998) Between 1990 and 1995 there was an increase of approximately 50 % in black African medical scheme members. “South Africa is fortunate in having notably high-quality healthcare resources in the private sector” (Ramjee, 2013/2014). Private