June 2018

<p>Public health spending accounts for 12% of total government expenditure, up from 10.5% in 1994/95.  It also accounts for 4.1% of GDP, up from 3.1% in 1994/95. Data on private medical cover - an indicator of middle class status - shows that less than a fifth of South Africa’s population are beneficiaries of private schemes.</p>
<p>South Africa has more private than public hospitals - Gauteng has about four times as many private as public hospitals. A similar trend is seen in KwaZulu-Natal and the Western Cape, the more prosperous provinces. The number of general practitioners nearly doubled between 2000 and 2016, while the number of medical specialists increased by 22%. Nurses in the private sector outnumber those in the public sector - possibly an indicator of better working conditions in private hospitals and clinics.<br />On public sector healthcare performance, an average performance score based on seven domains is provided for each province according to which none of the nine provinces obtained a ‘compliant’ (70% and above) score. Ultimately, a major revamp of management efficiency is necessary to bring public healthcare to a state of optimum efficiency and it is unclear that the NHI proposal is geared to achieve that.</p>
<p>The Fast Stats pages, with financial and other statistics, are included. </p>
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