'The bandwagon of golden opportunities'? Healthcare in South Africa's Bantustan periphery

bibliographic database
Line

Periodical article

Title:	'The bandwagon of golden opportunities'? Healthcare in South Africa's Bantustan periphery
Author:	Digby, Anne
Year:	2012
Periodical:	South African Historical Journal (ISSN 0258-2473)
Volume:	64
Issue:	4
Pages:	827-851
Language:	English
Geographic term:	South Africa
Subjects:	health care health policy bantustans apartheid
External link:	https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02582473.2012.670262
Abstract:	The article discusses the aspirations and achievements of 10 Bantustan Departments of Health in the Republic of South Africa (RSA) in trying to develop integrated district health care for their African populations from the 1970s to 1990s. These departments aimed to prioritize preventive and promotive rather than curative medicine, and to decentralize health care in an expanding network of clinics. They were both helped and hindered in their innovative work by their relationship with the RSA which, whilst aiding them with resources, at the same time caused growing problems because of a migrant labour system in which many people worked in the RSA but were forced to reside in the Bantustans. In addition the article suggests that, within a wider South African context, Bantustan health care provided a hidden link between the progressive but abortive proposals for a national health service proposed in the Gluckman Report (1944) and attempts by the democratic government half a century later to provide a district system of primary health care. Notes, ref., sum. [Journal abstract]