The Situation in Brief

In the last decade, the health care system in South Africa has concentrated on increasing access to primary health care services. This policy has been challenged by two major obstacles: the AIDS pandemic that threatens to overwhelm primary care and hospital services; and a shortage of appropriately trained personnel to staff the desired services.

The country’s drive to implement both HIV AIDS treatment and primary health care services generally is further thwarted by the fact that it does not have the required managerial skills in the health sector. Retention of doctors and nurses, particularly in areas of greatest disadvantage and need, is difficult; and foreign demand for South Africa’s English-speaking health professionals is expected to rise, putting further pressure on development of a strong health workforce.

South Africa’s greatest health system needs are to build this health care workforce and improve the collection and analysis of data that determine how well projects are working and where resources should go. Assistance is also needed in advocating for more effective, accessible public health care and better, faster resource allocation. We intend to focus our work here in three provinces, two of which we have identified – KwaZulu-Natal and the Western Cape.

Population Health Programme Goals

The goals of the Population Health Programme in South Africa are as follows:

• Support the training of key personnel in people management, implementation skills and leadership.
• Strengthen the capacity of important institutions to advocate, based on a robust analysis, for a more effective and accessible public health system, better resources allocation, and fast implementation in a time of crisis.
• Arrange to pilot sight-restoration and blindness-treatment and -prevention programmes by 2009, including by developing capacity at the local level to help design and roll out these initiatives.

Population Health Resources

• Department of Health, www.doh.gov.za
• Health Systems Trust, www.hst.org.za
• Health-e, www.health-e.org.za
• School of Public Health, University of the Western Cape, www.uwc.ac.za
• Treatment Action Campaign, www.tac.org.za
• UNIAIDS, www.unaids.org
  

More Facts At a Glance

• During the past eight years, the population grew 14%, yet only 12% more professional nurses were trained – just one of many indicators that training and retaining health care personnel is not keeping pace with demand. ⁴
• HIV/AIDS is particularly prevalent among disadvantaged and young people, with infection rates of 30.8% among 20- to 24-year olds; and 38.5% among 25- to 34-year olds. ⁵
  

Continue to read about our Population Health Programme in Viet Nam »

Footnotes

1, Source: Health Systems Trust, South African Health Review, 2005 – http://www.hst.org.za/generic/29
2, Source: Health Systems Trust, South African Health Review, 2005 – http://www.hst.org.za/generic/29
3, Source: Department of Health, National HIV and Syphilis Antenatal sero-prevalence survey in South Africa, 2004 - http://www.doh.gov.za/docs/reports-f.html
4, Source: Cullinan K., “Staff Looting continues”, Health-e – www.health-e.org.za/
5, Source: Department of Health, National HIV and Syphilis Antenatal Sero-prevalence Survey in South Africa, 2004 – http://www.doh.gov.za/http://www.hst.org.za/generic/29