| Summary |
Adequate and appropriate vehicles are essential for health service delivery. These are
required for transport and transfer of patients from community to health facilities and between
levels of health care delivery of essential equipment, medicines and other supplies to point
of service delivery transport of health workers for supervisory visits, to attend meetings and
training sessions and for administrative purposes.
A transport management system that is efficiently and cost effectively run is essential to ensure
availability of vehicles for health service delivery when required. |
| More Details |
In South Africa the National Department of Transport sets policy and guidelines for
management of transport for all public sectors, including the health sector. The Provincial
Departments of Transport are responsible for all public sector transport within the provinces. A
complex relationship between the sectors has developed through this centralised policy.
Public Private Partnerships (PPP) for outsourcing non-core functions of the public sectors is a
national government policy. The process for entering into a PPP is guided and monitored by the
National Treasury. Management of transport for public sector service delivery was identified
as a non-core function of the National Department of Transport. PPPs for management of
public sector transport were initiated in the Northern Cape Province (November 2001) and
the Eastern Cape Province (August 2003).
A research project to study the impact of privatisation of the public sector fleet on health
service delivery in the Eastern Cape Province was undertaken. Standard transport indicators
as developed by TransAid Worldwide1 were to be used to compare the effectiveness and
efficiency of transport for health prior to and after introduction of the PPP. This was not possible
due to lack of available data at district and provincial levels.
The research, however, highlights weaknesses in policy development for an essential support
service for delivery of health services. The base-line needs assessment and costing was
inadequate. No mechanism for monitoring and evaluating service delivery and the cost
effectiveness of the policy change was included. |
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| Keywords |
This Item is associated with the Following
Keywords: transport. |
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