Eastern Cape limps along

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This, coupled with high levels of poverty and unsatisfactory access to basic services such as piped water is a recipe for disaster.

With the third largest population in the country (almost 7-million people), the Eastern Cape is by far the poorest province in the country.

The province has more than doubled the money spent on primary health care (PHC) over the past four year to R222 (close to the national average of R232). However, this is yet to translate into health deliverables on the ground.

Data on the prevention of mother-to-child programme, one the country’s biggest HIV prevention programmes, is unreliable with the province recording the lowest rate of babies receiving nevirapine.

Other Provinces:

The tuberculosis cure rate for 2004 is extremely poor at 32 percent, declining from 50 percent the year before.

OR Tambo, with a population of nearly two million people, is the poorest district in the country with around a quarter of people having access to piped water.

Only 40 percent of residents in Alfred Nzo, another one of the poorest districts in the country, have access to piped water. Health indicators in this district are also poor with the tuberculosis cure rate at 36 percent.

Researchers believe that the low number of deliveries taking place in Alfred Nzo’s health facilities and the low number of Caesarean sections contributed to the very high and increasing stillbirth and perinatal mortality rates.

Amathole district is described as the most deprived urban district in the province with about one in three of households unable to get piped water.