07/01/2024 | Press release | Distributed by Public on 07/01/2024 09:20
1 July 2024 - Wits University
The Academy of Science of South Africa released the report, "Achieving Good Governance and Management in the South African Health System" on 28 June 2024.
Wits Professor of Public Health, Sharon Fonn was one of the seven professionals drawn from various disciplines in the South African health system who conducted the study.
The consensus study explores critical governance issues that impact the South African health sector and it provides actionable recommendations for change.
Commissioned in September 2020, the study embarked on an examination of the pillars underpinning good governance.
The report highlights significant challenges, including leadership instability, lack of transparency, insufficient accountability mechanisms, and pervasive corruption.
Despite these obstacles, the study acknowledges positive examples of effective governance, which serve as a foundation for the panel's comprehensive recommendations aimed at systemic reform.
Fonn says, "Access to quality health care is important for all in South Africa. It meets basic needs and is valuable in and of itself, but it also promotes economic growth, and is our constitutional right. Good governance and management of the health systems is essential to providing quality health care. It is costly at many levels, mostly in building the structures, relationships and trust that are required. But doing nothing is much more costly to South Africa."
The report identifies several core areas of concern:
The panel offers a roadmap for reform, emphasising the necessity of:
Implementing these recommendations will require concerted effort from all stakeholders within the health system. The cost of inaction is great, potentially jeopardising the realisation of universal health coverage and the constitutional commitment to health care access and equality for all South Africans.
The Academy of Science of South Africa (ASSAf) was inaugurated in May 1996. It was formed in response to the need for an Academy of Science consonant with the dawn of democracy in South Africa: activist in its mission of using science and scholarship for the benefit of society, with a mandate encompassing all scholarly disciplines that use an open-minded and evidence-based approach to build knowledge. ASSAf thus adopted in its name the term 'science' in the singular as reflecting a common way of enquiring rather than an aggregation of different disciplines. Its members are elected on the basis of a combination of two principal criteria, academic excellence and significant contributions to society. The Parliament of South Africa passed the Academy of Science of South Africa Act (No 67 of 2001), which came into force on 15 May 2002. This made ASSAf the only academy of science in South Africa officially recognised by the government and representing the country in the international community of science academies and elsewhere.