The Rustenburg Resolution: Inequality in Health Care in South Africa

Abstract

We, family practitioners gathered in Rustenburg for the 14th National Family Practitioners Congress: Recognising: 1. The commitment in the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa to the right of access to health care 2. The efforts to provide health care to all those living within South Africa 3. The principles enshrined in the Patients Rights Charter and the Batho Pele programme 4. The continuing inequity in access and differential quality of health care experienced by people in South Africa 5. The discrimination experienced by the poor, the marginalised, immigrant and rural people in accessing quality health care 6. The major imbalance in spending between hospital care and primary care and acknowledging: 1. That we have failed individually, and collectively through the system and structures we are part of, to provide high quality affordable health care to our patients 2. That we have failed to stand up for the “have-nots”, but instead have entrenched the privileges of the “haves” 3. That we have not provided sufficient care to the most vulnerable in society commit ourselves: 1. To reflect, together with local health service teams, on our role in contributing to the inequity of resources and inequality of care in our various contexts, and to endeavour to address these issues together 2. To document instances of what is happening in the primary care context with regard to inequality of care