South African medical journal = Suid-Afrikaanse tydskrif vir geneeskunde
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Historical Article
A historical overview of paediatric surgery at Wits University: From embryo to adult.
History provides wonderful insights into how society develops, providing innumerable lessons that can be used as individuals and institutions move into the future. The history of medicine provides particular value, yet it is so often overlooked by the present, society taking for granted what has often been a tremendous struggle to achieve. This overview of the history of paediatric surgery at the University of the Witwatersrand provides amazing insights into what has been achieved in a period spanning three centuries.
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Broader policy research and debate on the issues related to the planning of National Health Insurance (NHI) in South Africa (SA) need to be complemented by case studies to examine and understand the issues that will have to be dealt with at micro and macro levels. The objective of this article is to use caesarean section (CS) as a case study to examine the health systems challenges that NHI would need to address in order to ensure sustainability. The specific objectives are to: (i) provide an overview of the key clinical considerations related to CS; (ii) assess the CS rates in the SA public and private sectors; and (iii) use a health systems framework to examine the drivers of the differences between the public and private sectors and to identify the challenges that the proposed NHI would need to address on the road to implementation.