The Act is intended to provide a framework for a structured uniform health system within the Republic, taking into account the obligations imposed by the Constitution and other laws on the national, provincial and local governments with regard to health services; and to provide for matters connected therewith
Values, Policies and Rights
South Africa: National Health Act 61 of 2003
Government Gazette 469, July 2004
South Africa: Sex, drugs and women’s rights
Sekeso T: Pambazuka News 545, 22 August 2011
In South Africa, drug and alcohol abuse should be an issue of national concern, the author of this article argues. Yet little has been done to curb the use of drugs and reduce their impact on public health outcomes. Alcohol is legal, widely available and relatively inexpensive, which makes it one of the main burdens of disease in the country, ranking third after unsafe sex and interpersonal violence. All three have contributed to the country’s high HIV prevalence rate, while alcohol abuse is increasingly becoming recognised as a key determinant of sexual risk taking and sexual violence, and as a consequence, a direct contributor to HIV transmission rates, and to challenges in HIV treatment and mitigation interventions in sub-Saharan countries. The author also indicates that heavy consumption of alcohol and regular binge drinking by people on anti-retroviral treatment (ART) is also linked to lower levels of treatment adherence and treatment efficacy. The South African government has agreed to several interim resolutions to curb alcohol abuse and better regulate the industry: possibly raising the legal age for purchasing and consuming alcohol from 18 to 21 years; limiting alcohol advertising; reviewing alcohol license fees; harmonising existing liquor legislation; imposing restrictions on the times and days of the week that alcohol can be legally sold and decreasing the number of taverns (shebeens).
South Africa: Strategic priorities for the National Health System 2004-2009
Department of Health, 2004
The Department of Health conducted a review of the period 1999-2004 to determine what work is outstanding and what new work is needed to provide the necessary stewardship of the South African health system.This process has resulted in the adoption of a new set of priorities described in this document.
South Africa: Synthesis report on the right to have access to healthcare services
Ntuli A, South African Human Rights Commission, June 2007
The SAHRC embarked upon provincial assessments in all nine provinces in preparation for a national enquiry into the right to have access to health care. This report provides a synthesis of the findings and main themes emerging from those assessments.
South African child guage 2005
Eldis news: Jacobs M, Shung-King M, Smith C
This publication examines the links between the practical situation of children in South Africa, South Africa’s commitments to child rights, and society’s progress in this regard. The document discusses the country’s response to different aspects of the challenge of realising children’s rights, and presents a set of broad-based indicators aimed at gauging improvements in the situation of children over time. This issue focuses on children and policy; HIV and AIDS and children, and the number of children with access to social assistance and basic services.
South African civil society organisations submit a parallel shadow report to the United Nations Treaty Body on the implementation of socio-economic rights
Socio-Economic Rights Institute of South Africa (SERI); Black Sash; the Dullah Omar Institute (DOI); et al: South Africa, 2018
In January 2015, South Africa ratified the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). The South African government submitted its initial report to the United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) in April 2017, raising the steps and measures taken to comply with the provisions of the Covenant, noting its progressive Constitution that includes socio-economic rights. A coalition of civil society organisations called “South Africa’s Ratification Campaign of the ICESCR and its Optional Protocol” (the Campaign) submitted a parallel report to the United Nations CESCR. The Campaign’s Steering Group is comprised of the Socio-Economic Rights Institute of South Africa, Black Sash, the Dullah Omar Institute, the People’s Health Movement South Africa and the Studies in Poverty and Inequality Institute. The Campaign’s parallel report provided a civil society perspective on socio-economic rights realisation in South Africa, and raised questions about areas of the state’s record in fulfilling these rights in order to promote greater accountability. The Campaign's report noted that actions to address the binding constraints to realising socio-economic rights are increasingly urgent in the South African context of severe poverty and inequality. For this reason, the authors identified the need for the state to address forced evictions and displacement; to assess the causes of under-expenditure on informal settlement upgrading; to address a lack of investment in infrastructure maintenance and services provision, and to address intergovernmental cooperation issues that impacted severely in the management of the drought in the Western Cape.
South African Human Rights Commission blames government for inadequate healthcare provision
Mail and Guardian: 17 April 2009
Government is responsible for the failures in South Africa's public healthcare system, and needs to address them so that every citizen's right to access healthcare services is realised, the South African Human Rights Commission has said. The Commission released its report on an inquiry into the country's public healthcare services, based on visits to about 100 facilities across the country and submissions from the public during May 2007. It identified poverty as a major barrier to accessing healthcare services in South Africa. As of 2007, 88% of South Africans are dependant on public healthcare services. The poor make up the majority of this figure, but the report found that their access to these services is severely constrained by transport costs and unacceptably long waiting times at clinics or hospitals. 'These constraints amount to a denial of the right to access healthcare,' said the Committee's deputy chairperson.
South African military gets new HIV policy
Plus News: 26 January 2010
In late 2009 the South African government announced that it had approved a new HIV and AIDS policy in the South African National Defence Force (SANDF). This was widely welcomed by AIDS and human rights lobbyists. A November 2009 statement by the SANDF noted that the new policy made provision for the recruitment and selective deployment of HIV-positive members of the military. The new policy complies with a High Court ruling in May 2008, which found that the previous policy of excluding HIV-positive people from recruitment and foreign deployment was unconstitutional. The new policy draws on a system of classifying soldiers according to their health status and needs. An HIV-positive soldier who is stable and asymptomatic can now be classified as a ‘G2K1’, meaning they have a chronic but treatable disease and can be deployed ‘anywhere at any time’. An HIV-positive recruit is required to be on ante-retrovirals for three to six months before being considered for deployment, and failure to adhere to treatment is grounds for being declared ‘temporarily unfit for deployment and military courses’.
Spectre of Ebola Protectionism
Bangura Y: CODESRIA Newsletter, November 2014
A new kind of protectionism is argued by the author to be haunting the world: the spectre of ebola protectionism. As ebola ravages the societies of the Mano River Union (MRU) states of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, the author notes that there are increasing calls from conservative politicians, right-wing groups, and sections of the media to prevent people from these states from interacting with the rest of the world. The protectionist measures range from exit and entry controls, such as temperature checks and mandatory monitoring and quarantining of travellers from MRU states, to flight bans and denial of visas to holders of MRU passports. The virus poses less of a threat to rich countries with sound public health systems than poor West African countries that have extensive links with the MRU states. The author argues that exit and non-intrusive entry controls, not flight bans and visa restrictions that Australia and Canada have imposed, may be enough to manage the few cases that are likely to pop up in rich countries.
State makes a no show at a maternal health rights Supreme Court appeal
Serunjogi F: CEHURD Newsletter, 3 December 2013
As a means of enforcing the justiciability of the right to health, on 3 March 2011, Petition Number 16 of 2011 on cases of maternal mortality was filed in Uganda’s Constitutional Court by the Centre for Health, Human Rights and Development (CEHURD) and others. This case argued, among others, that by not providing essential health services and commodities for pregnant women and their new-borns, Government was violating fundamental human rights guaranteed in the Constitution, including the right to health, the right to life, and the rights of women. However, court dismissed the case on grounds that the the constitutional court had no power to determine the matter. CEHURD appealed to the Supreme Court asserting that the petition was fully with in the mandate of the constitutional court. The hearing could not however be started because the government was not represented in court at the first hearing of the Appeal leading to its postponement.