preview

What Is The Advantage Of The Public Hospital?

Decent Essays
Open Document

1 INTRODUCTION, BACKGROUND AND RATIONALE Public health care facilities in South Africa are funded by the government (Hasumi, Jacobsen 2014). This funding is often inadequate and fails to meet the health needs of 84% of the population that seek care from public health facilities (Mayosi, Benatar 2014). Health workers in public clinics that offer ambulatory services suffer high workload and stressful working environments due to staff shortages, (Pillay 2009, George, Gow & Bachoo 2013, van Rensburg 2014). Staff shortages in public clinics often lead quality problems such as long queues, bad staff attitudes and lack of confidentiality due to overloaded facilities and drug shortages (Hasumi, Jacobsen 2014, Mayosi et al. 2012, Basu et al. 2012). Public hospitals also suffer from shortages of hospital beds, medical equipment and medical personnel (Dell, Kahn 2017). Comparisons are often made between public and private health where poor quality service are not common due to adequate resourcing. 2 PROBLEM STATEMENT Under resourcing of public facilities affects retention of patients, acceptability of public facilities and treatment progress in cases of drug shortages. Public health facilities depend on adequate resources to offer services of good quality to patients. Without resources, mainly funding, public clinics become understaffed, overcrowded by patients waiting for services, suffer from drug shortages and confidentiality during consultations is lost. Hospitals are also not

Get Access