Addressing Health Disparities
As much as the apartheid regime ended in South Africa in early 1990s the country still faces severe racism and economic inequality. The country struggles to deal with sustained social injustice, poverty and the level of unemployment, diseases burden, and the gaps in the quality of health care that is offered. Although, the South African health care setting is relatively comparable with that of the rest of Southern African countries in terms of disease burden or lack of systematic framework or social justice.
Socioeconomic and Geographical Inequalities
The main factors that affect equality in access, availability and distribution of health care services and resources in South Africa comprise the economic status; race and region. These present day inequalities have multiple causes that include the lack of a central, authoritative health policy, the apartheid and white dominance policy, the free market policy, and the social-cultural system of the country.
Geographical location is perhaps one of the major determinants of people’s accessibility to health care services. Most of the negate resides in villages as a result of rural health care facilities and man powers are limited. This scarcity is such that many of the rural populace is forced to trek long distances without access to even the most basic of health related services. While developing regions and rural areas suffer from poor health facilities and few accessible services, urban areas especially the developed ones provide more health care services.
Effects of the COVID-19
COVID-19, the ongoing outbreak has also brought out more strongly the gaps in of the South African healthcare. The requirement of the population is beyond what can be offered by the system, this means many people are not even aware of their health status and therefore the time they take before they seek medical treatment. Even the funding of the system is exploitative, as in public funded health care the health care gets funded according to the population of each province and not based on the need of the people.
One reason that becoming evident in the course of the pandemic was the elite’s realization of the burden that the healthcare industry has been shouldering. The public hospitals were stretched to their limits in terms of manpower, equipments and facilities which they could not adequately cater for the increased patients turnout. While the private sector was comparatively better off, it was beyond the reach of many for it was pricey. This situation has therefore called for deeper and further reforms in the systemic structure to promote changes that will address issues of equitable distribution of resources in the health sector.
Steps Towards Equitable Healthcare
To overcome these inequalities, South Africa has to make certain that availability of health care is spread across the system. Improving the quality of care in the public sector, therefore would contribute towards the reduction of the over reliance on the expensive medical insurance. In addition, the system has to be more reactive at the settings where most patients obtain care by decentralising the services and training lower-scale personnel like CHWs.
Community health workers are usually one of the best investments one can make. These are more approachable workers who are tend to be recruited from the population groups in the relevant areas, which can afford prompt health education, check-ups and basic services. With the use of CHWs, South Africa has an opportunity to enhance healthcare access and quality of care to citizens that are residing in the communities that are not well served.
Policy and Systemic Reforms
There is need for system transformation in order to deal with inequity in health in South Africa. High-stake authorities should therefore design and ensure that this country follows a proper health policy that addresses the equity health issue. This policy should deal with the factors that lead to inequity such as; social and economic status and historical marginalization.
Another important dimension of heath care reform is with regards to funding. These issues point to the necessity of improving the funding of the public health care in the South Africa, which implies that the resources should be distributed according to the needs not the share of the population in a country. This would in turn ensure that we had developed a way of addressing the issues of disparities in that those areas that require more attention on healthcare would be provided with the required necessities to address this challenge.
Conclusion
Inequalities have remained characteristic for the South African health care system and addressing them requires not only improved access to healthcare services, but also the focus on the social determinants of health, the restructuring of the country’s healthcare system and the implementation of local digital health interventions. The intended goal is therefore to transform the health care system so that it can respond efficiently to the challenges facing citizens of South Africa.
These are the steps that will help South Africa to work for improving the inequitable health system at every level so that everyone in need of health care, poor or rich, living in rural or urban area, can be accessed easily and equally. The fight to attain health equity is not easy, though it has to be done to ensure the health and prosperity of the nation today and in future.
