Abstract
Introduction: People’s confidence in the health system's capability in managing the COVID-19 pandemic can determine public support, risk perceptions, and compliance to the required behaviors during the pandemic. Therefore, this paper investigated people’s perception of health system capability to manage the COVID-19 pandemic in different spatial areas across the country using data from an online survey. Methods: Multivariate logistic regression models were used to examine factors associated with people’s perception of the health system capability to manage the COVID-19 pandemic at the national and provincial levels. Spatial comparative analysis was conducted to contrast spatial density indicators of the number of hospitals, hospital beds, and ICU beds per given population across various provinces. Results: Findings showed that South Africans had low confidence in the health system capability, with only two in five (40.7%) reporting that they thought that the country’s health system was able to manage the COVID-19 pandemic. Sex and knowledge on COVID-19 were significantly associated with the people’s perception of the health system capability to manage the pandemic at the national level and in four of the nine provinces. Conclusion: Overall, the findings of this study clearly highlight challenges facing the country’s health system, both perceived or real, that needed to be addressed as part of the preparation for the COVID-19 pandemic. Timeous implementation of a countrywide National Health Insurance (NHI) system is now more critical than ever in improving healthcare outcomes of the South African population beyond the existence of the COVID-19 epidemic.
Highlights
Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a novel coronavirus caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV2)
The findings of this study clearly highlights the challenges on the country’s health system both perceived or real that needed to be addressed as part of the preparation for the COVID-19 pandemic
According to recent presentation made to South African Members of Parliament by the Director General of the National Department Health, there is a total of 119 416 hospital beds available from both private and public hospitals across South Africa
Summary
Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a novel coronavirus caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV2). This novel coronavirus first emerged as a causative agent that led to a respiratory disease outbreak in December 2019 in Wuhan, China (Jernberg 2020). According to recent presentation made to South African Members of Parliament by the Director General of the National Department Health, there is a total of 119 416 hospital beds available from both private and public hospitals across South Africa (du Toit and Cowan 2020; van der Heveer 2020). It is estimated that at highest peak of COVID-19 outbreak, 7 000 ventilators will be required to deal with the virus, a shortage of 3 784 (du Toit and Cowan 2020)
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