Legislation prior to 2002 tended to reinforce the alienation, stigmatisation and disempowerment of mentally ill patients in South Africa. In line with international developments in mental health legislation, the Mental Health Care Act (2002) was promulgated in South Africa. Its core principles--human rights for users; decentralisation and integration of mental health care at primary, secondary ...

BACKGROUND Motivation and job satisfaction have been identified as key factors for health worker retention and turnover in low- and middle-income countries. District health managers in decentralized health systems usually have a broadened 'decision space' that enables them to positively influence health worker motivation and job satisfaction, which in turn impacts on retention and performance a...

BACKGROUND To date, few studies address disparities in older populations specifically using frailty as one of the health outcomes and examining the relative contributions of individual and environmental factors to health outcomes. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS Using a data set from a health survey of 4,000 people aged 65 years and over living in all regions of Hong Kong, we examined regional...

A plea is made for an experiment in unified health care in one or two of the new district health authorities in Inner London. The essence of the proposal is that district health authorities should hold the contracts of independent contractors, that the independence and entitlements of the contractors should be preserved, but that the district health authorities should manage a unified budget. T...

Background Infertility is a neglected service component in the public health-care system in India. Objectives This study aims to assess the availability and practices on prevention and management services for infertility in the district health system. Methodology A cross-sectional survey of selected health facilities and the staff from 12 district hospitals (DHs), 24 community health center...

Surgical disease is an important cause of preventable mortality and morbidity, but it is not clear how best to deliver surgical services to under-served rural populations in poorer countries. South Africa's policy is to restructure heath services, with district hospitals and health centres becoming the primary delivery vehicle for quality health care to all South Africans. Among other things th...

Background While mental and substance use disorders are common worldwide, the treatment gap is enormous in low and middle income countries. Primary health care is considered to be the most important way for people to get mental health care. Cambodia is a country with a long history of war and has poor mental health and limited resources for care. The aim of this study was to conduct a situation...

This work aims at investigating the supply and demand of the medium-complexity services from the Federal District and surrounding municipalities from the state of Goiás. Our hypothesis is that the services organization offer of primary care (PC) from the Federal District (DF) and its surroundings overloads the medium-complexity services (MC), contributing to less equity in terms of communities ...

BACKGROUND Robust health systems are required for the promotion of child and adolescent mental health (CAMH). In low and middle income countries such as Uganda neuropsychiatric illness in childhood and adolescence represent 15-30 % of all loss in disability-adjusted life years. In spite of this burden, service systems in these countries are weak. The objective of our assessment was to explore s...

A study on community knowledge, attitudes and perception on malaria and its management was conducted in Mpwapwa district of central Tanzania in January-February 2001. Six villages, three with health facilities (Kibakwe, Makose and Mwanawota) and three without health facilities (Chogola, Kidenge and Wangi) lying between 975 and 1859 m above sea level were selected for the study. According to mos...