Health policy

Project Manager Gauteng District Health Systems

Closing date: 29 February 2008

HST is seeking to appoint a Project Manager to provide strategic and technical support to District Health Planning, District Expenditure Reviews, Service Transformation Plans, District Health Information Systems and Clinic Supervision in the Gauteng Province.

Struggle for the health of the nation will resume

HEALTH care in SA is a famously contested sphere, and this year is likely to see intense lobbying by diverse interest groups as the government continues to try to regulate their activities. Several important bills are due to go before Parliament, and key sections of other acts need to be brought into effect. The governments desire to make health care more affordable and narrow the gap between the services available to rich and poor drives much of the legislation that has been passed, or is in the pipeline.

South African Health Review 2007

Series Name: 
South African Health Review
Published by: 
Health Systems Trust

The Role of the Private Sector within the South African Health System
The South African Health Review (SAHR) is an annual publication of the Health Systems Trust (HST), which has been published since 1995. The SAHR seeks to provide a South African perspective on prevailing international public health issues, to stimulate debate and critical dialogue and to provide a platform for assessing progress in the health sector.

Full SAHR 2007

Foreword
Contents and Acknowledgements
Editorial

Oversight: Principles and Policy
1 Stewardship: Protecting the Public's Health
2 Health Policy and Legislation

Pooling of Resources and Purchasing of Health Care
3 Health Care Financing and Expenditure
4 Medical Schemes
5 Social or National Health Insurance
6 Health Information Systems in the Private Health Sector
7 Health and Health Care in the Workplace
8 Rationing of Medicines and Health Care Technology

Health Care Delivery
9 Human Resources for Health
10 Public-Private Partnerships:A Case Study of the Pelonomi and Universitas Hospital Co-Location Project
11 Private Hospitals
12 Traditional and Complementary Medicine
13 Economics of the Traditional Medicine Trade in South Africa
14 HIV and AIDS, STI and TB in the Private Sector

Indicators
15 Health and Related Indicators

Glossary
Index

If you would like to order a hard copy of the SAHR 2007, please click >>here>>.

Press Release

These are the drivers of our healthcare inflation

It seems you cannot open a newspaper or financial journal anywhere in the world without finding articles about the unacceptable cost of private healthcare, or the high rate of medical inflation. In South Africa, these articles are embedded with doom and gloom the very survival of the private healthcare system is called into question on a regular occasion.

HST Conference 2007: About the Conference

Strengthening Health Systems in Southern Africa 1992-2007 - HST Conference Report 2007 (2008-05-16)

Since 1992, the Health Systems Trust (HST) has been contributing to the development of a comprehensive, equitable and effective national health system in South Africa. More recently HST has begun to work more widely within the SADC region. Core activities of HST are health systems research, health systems development, advocacy, capacity development and information dissemination.

Health Systems Trust launches 2nd District Health Barometer

http://www.hst.org.za/publications/701
The highest per capita primary health care expenditure in the public sector by a district in South Africa during 2005/06 was R416 per person in Bophirima district in the North West province. This is in stark contrast to the lowest rate of R115 per person spent in Greater Sekhukhune, a relatively deprived district in Limpopo province.

Global Fund risks Medicines without Doctors if it doesnt finance health sector scale-up

A team of international health experts this week warned the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB, and Malaria: fund the salaries of health workers or else risk a situation in which medicines for these three diseases are made available in poor countries but there are no health professionals to deliver them.

The District Health Barometer - Year 2005/06

Published by: 
Health Systems Trust

The District Health Barometer (DHB) supports district managers with monitoring and evaluation of district performance and with their annual District Health Plans. It translates routinely collected service level data into information that supports effortless interpretation which leads to engagement.

The report compares key health indicators between the six metropolitan districts, between the 13 rural node districts and between all the districts throughout the country. Analysis of this carefully selected range of health indicators, facilitates identification of problem areas and the corresponding corrective measures. Inequities between rural and urban areas are addressed throughout the report.

Managers at all levels in the health sector and those in other sectors such as the national treasury, academia and policy, can use the DHB to

  • investigate reasons why and solutions to inequitable access to health within and between districts,
  • plan and facilitate equitable distribution of funds
  • identify gaps in data quality
  • identify research into equity,
  • identify operational research for clarification of reasons of poor performance and identification of corrective measures.

 

The DHB is a unique tool which aims to improve the quality, capacity and use of health information and the equitable allocation of health resources at all levels.

Table of Contents ('right click' on the link and chose 'file save as')

Full pdf of the DHB

Foreword
Introduction, Background and Overview

Section A: Indicator comparisons by district

  1. Socioeconomic Indicators
    1. Deprivation Index
    2. Access to Water
  2. Input Indicators
    2.1 Per Capita Expenditure on Primary Health Care (excluding district hospitals)
    2.2 Proportion of District Health Services Expenditure on District Management
    2.3 Proportion of District Health Services Expenditure on District Hospitals
  3. Process Indicators
    3.1 Nurse Clinical Workload
    3.2 Average Length of Stay
    3.3 Bed Utilisation Rate
  4. Output Indicators
    4.1 Male Condom Distribution Rate
    4.2 Immunisation
    4.2.1 Immunisation Coverage
    4.2.2 Immunisation Drop Out Rate (DTP1-3)
    4.3 Caesarean Section Rate
    4.4 PMTCT Indicators
    4.4.1 Proportion of antenatal clients tested for HIV
    4.4.2 HIV Prevalence amongst antenatal clients tested
    4.4.3 Nevirapine uptake rate among pregnant HIV+ve women
    4.4.4 Nevirapine uptake rate among babies born to women with HIV
    4.5 Primary health care utilisation rate
  5. Outcome Indicators
    5.1 Incidence of STI treated-new
    5.2 Tuberculosis
    5.2.1 Smear Conversion Rates
    5.2.2 TB Cure Rate
    5.3 Diarrhoea incidence in children under 5 years
    5.4 Not gaining weight rate under 5 years
    5.5 Delivery rate in facility
  6. Impact indicators
    6.1 Stillbirth rate
    6.2 Perinatal mortality rate (PNMR)

Section B: District and Province Profiles 
- Eastern Cape Province
- Free State Province
- Gauteng Province
- KwaZulu Natal Province
- Limpopo Province
- Mpumalanga Province
- Northern Cape Province
- North West Province
- Western Cape Province

Appendices
Map of 53 Health Districts in South Africa
Data Tables
Correlation Graphs
Deprivation Indices
The District Health Information System
Tuberculosis Surveillance and data collection in South Africa
Indicator Definitions
References and further reading