• South Africa’s health sector has been in crisis for the past decade and the country is heading for the bottom of almost every table of international health indicators.
  • The health sector is in crisis because since 1990, HIV and AIDS have taken a terrible toll and the publicly provided health services are not delivering care effectively.
  • As influenced by Colombia and Costa Rica, South Africa’s goal is to have a single national health system that incorporates the public sector and the private sector.
  • This roundtable discussion found that the private sector is already playing an important role in health care, including providing care to poorer people, and its role could be expanded, given an enabling regulatory environment that could facilitate it becoming a more active partner in transforming South Africa’s ailing health sector.

Op-Ed: Market forces could save SA’s ailing health sector, says policy think-tank CDE