Rural health

If the principal aim of the public health sector is to improve the health of South Africans, then our focus must be the health of rural people. In other words, the reform efforts and upheavals which have left the South African health system creaking and groaning in protest must continue until it is turned on its head - and is explicitly biased towards rural health. Rural people bear the greatest burden of disease, mainly because rural people bear the greatest burden of poverty. But paradoxically, urban dwellers are better served by both public and private health care resources. Simply put, rural people are generally poorer and less healthy -and have less access to health care.

This report documents the outcome of that planning process in the Impendle/Pholela/Underberg in KwaZulu-Natal, and charts a plan of action which has already started. It is divided into three sections.