African journal of primary health care & family medicine
-
Afr J Prim Health Care Fam Med · Jul 2020
The effects of coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic on the South African health system: A call to maintain essential health services.
South Africa had its first coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) case on 06 March 2020 in an individual who travelled overseas. Since then, cases have constantly increased and the pandemic has taken a toll on the health system. This requires extra mobilisation of resources to curb the disease and overcome financial loses whilst providing social protection to the poor. ⋯ In such emergencies, the ability to deliver essential services is dependent on baseline capacity of health system. Our approach advocates for close collaboration between essential services and COVID-19 teams to identify priorities, restructure essential services to accommodate physical distancing, promote task shifting at primary level, optimise the use of mobile/web-based technologies for service delivery/training/monitoring and involve private sector and non-health departments to increase management capacity. Strategic responses thus planned can assist in mitigating the adverse effects of the pandemic whilst preventing morbidity and mortality from preventable diseases in the population.