27 Sep 2018
From warehouse to wellness
By Staff Writer
The South African healthcare industry is a large and complex system, still reflecting, within places of its design, the nation’s fragmented history. The public sector comprises 52 health districts across nine provinces managing approximately 1000 hospitals and a further 3500 health care clinics offering almost 87 000 beds. In parallel to the public system, private healthcare provides about 31 000 beds via a network of just over 200 hospitals – although this sector services only about 17 percent of the population through insurance offered by the 90 private medical schemes within the country. Beyond this network of care facilities, an endless list of retail pharmacies and medical practices create a diverse network, operating within a complex regulatory framework, sometimes challenging geographies, limited budgets and an ever-increasing number of patients.
