Let’s start with the positives. South Africa should have all the ingredients it needs to make its public health system work:Although insufficient to meet needs and severely under strain, it has a skilled human resource base, including – because of our unique burden of disease – world-class infectious disease specialists and trauma surgeons;
And yet, although most health workers perform admirably, the system performs abysmally and, as a result, we get extremely poor population health outcomes.In my view , the key things that are missing in action, and which prevent us from maximising this potential, are visionary political leadership; skilled and accountable management of health facilities; and quality and continuous communication up, down and out of the health system to the people who use it.
Now I have to admit that she was right. With the exception of the response to HIV – where activism has driven the agenda for two decades – civil society advocacy has not made the health system better and we should admit it. Recent developments, particularly the “I Am” movement, are important because they reflect a growing recognition, mainly by doctors at this stage, that it’s time to start rebuilding and taking over the health system from below., convenor of the Progressive Health Forum, calls the “I Am” movement “a spontaneous act of defiant solidarity by thousands of health professionals, daring the administration to act against them too for echoing his sentiments”.
AlexvandeHeever Yes appropriate sentiments but thin on the diagnoses and treatments unfortunately
An excellent article, thank you.