Rural Health Advocacy Project

OUR WORK

The RHAP has three main focus areas:

Voice:
This priority addresses the need to make rural health more visible to key stakeholders, such as the government, the media and the general public, by highlighting challenges and good practices.

Policy:
This priority entails the rural-proofing of existing and new policies and guidelines.

Implementation:
This priority area focuses on actual implementation on the ground in relation to HR and Health Systems. The RHAP will monitor and gather evidence on these issues and give them to the relevant stakeholders to act upon.

*Photo credit : The photograph of the donkey car was taken by Izak De Vries

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Rural Health Facts
Rural areas, home to 43,6% of the population, are served by only 12% of South Africa's doctors and 19% of its nurses
There are 30 generalist doctors and 30 specialists per 100 000 people in urban areas, but only 13 generalists and a mere 2 specialists per 100 000 people in rural areas
The ratio of professional nurses to the population is 82% greater in Gauteng than in Mpulamanga
Of the 1200 medical students graduating in SA yearly, only about 35 end up working in rural areas in the longer term
Three out the four Districts with the highest HIV prevalence are rural
There is a shortage of pharmacies in rural areas but an oversupply in urban areas
Despite this, there are some remarkably successful initiatives in rural areas:
The perinatal mortality rate at deeply rural Zithulele District Hospital in the Eastern Cape dropped from 42 per 1000 to 24•6 per 1000 in 2008, due to a hospital turn around strategy implemented by a multi-disciplinary team of health workers
Some of the most successful ARV programmes are based in rural areas, with some rural projects exceeding the NSP 2011 targets of 80% of people in need on ARV treatment
This is in a context of enormous challenges:
40% of poor women are not accessing PHC services in the Eastern Cape
The burden of non-communicable diseases is rising in rural communities
Poor rural households in a Limpopo District spend up to 80% of monthly income on health expenditure, travel costs being a significant contributor
21.3% of households in metropolitan areas belong to a medical aid, but only 5,4% of households in rural districts
There is a critical shortage of ambulances in rural areas