Public Healthcare System in RSA

Vlasta Peyerlová

In the Republic of South Africa, two healthcare systems exist in parallel: public and private. If you ever find yourself in need of medical care in this country, consider digging deep into your pockets and going for the private one. Let me explain why.

There are six times more public clinics and two times more hospitals than in the private sector distributed across the country. Despite this reality, if you ever wander into one of these public facilities, you'll probably find yourself in a terribly crowded place filled with not-very-happy patients and very few overworked and to death-tired staff. According to data from 2015, there are approximately four thousand patients on one doctor and eight hundred on one nurse.

Not only that, but you may as well wait a long time before you even get to the hospital. Especially if you wish to care for a more renowned hospital. And well, if you look again at the numbers above, there's no need to explain why you should go to the private hospital.

Moreover, bed shortages are very common too. Therefore, many surgeries are carried out late, which, of course, worsens the patient's condition and complicates the treatment, so the patient needs to stay in the hospital longer-a vicious circle, don't you think?

Now, you may be wondering, why is all of this? Firstly, only over a thousand doctors graduate each year on average, which is just not enough to satisfy the need for them. Not only that but most of them go to work in the private sector, which is sadly wholly understandable. After all, they'll get paid more and work in much better conditions. This ties into the second point: RSA's public healthcare system is simply underfunded, mismanaged and through and through full of corruption. Sadly, it doesn't seem to change any time soon...

Edit: KM