Primary health care underutilised in Gauteng
With several tertiary hospitals placed in the province there are very few district hospitals and the utilisation of primary health care (PHC) clinics is extremely low.
Hospital indicators show that the district hospitals in the province are well managed with patients staying for an average of just under three days.
The province has decreased its spending on PHC over the last four years and is now in line with the national average.
However, its prevention of mother-to-child statistics are disappointing. Just under half of pregnant women were tested for HIV and almost 30 percent of these were HIV positive. Less than half of these mothers received nevirapine although all their babies received the drug.
The city of Johannesburg, is both the most densely populated and has the most people in the country living in it. Almost all homes have access to piped water.
Although the TB cure rate has improved, researchers said it was still unacceptably low at 62,5 percent given the level of health services available in the district. Nurses also had a low workload of only 18 patients per day.
There had also been a sharp decline in the distribution of condoms in the city from 12,5 in 2004 to 6,5 in 2005. Researchers said the province has not prioritised condom distribution, decreasing it to 5 condoms per man per year, the second lowest in the country.
Gauteng’s most deprived district, Metsweding (the areas around Bronkhorstpruit and Cullinan) has seen a decline in the money spent on PHC services from R169 per person in 2001/2 to R119 in 2005. In comparison, Ekhurhuleni spent more than double, R270.
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