Estimating the emergency care workforce in South Africa

African Journal of Primary Health Care & Family Medicine

 
 
Field Value
 
Title Estimating the emergency care workforce in South Africa
 
Creator Tiwari, Ritika Naidoo, Raveen English, René Chikte, Usuf
 
Subject Emergency Care Professionals, education emergency care personnel; paramedics; health policy; health workforce forecasting; health systems; health service strengthening; South Africa; health worker
Description Background: Emergency care is viewed as a fundamental human right in South Africa’s constitution. In the public sector, all emergency medical services (EMS) come under the Directorate: Emergency Medical Services and Disaster Medicine at the National Department of Health (NDoH), which provides regulation, policy and oversight guidance to provincial structures.Aim: The aim of the study is to understand the supply and status of human resources for EMS in South Africa.Setting: This research was undertaken for South Africa using the Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA) database from 2002 to 2019.Methods: A retrospective record-based review of the HPCSA database was undertaken to estimate the current registered and future need for emergency care personnel forecasted up to 2030.Results: There are 76% Basic Ambulance Assistants registered with HPCSA. An additional 96 000 personnel will be required in 2030 to maintain the current ratio of 95.9 registered emergency care personnel per 100 000 population. The profile of an emergency care personnel employed in South Africa is likely to be a black male in the age group of 30–39-years, residing in one of the economically better-resourced provinces.Conclusion: It is time that the current educational framework is revised. Policy interventions must be undertaken to avoid future shortages of the trained emergency care personnel within South Africa.
 
Publisher AOSIS
 
Contributor
Date 2021-12-08
 
Type info:eu-repo/semantics/article info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion — Review
Format text/html application/epub+zip text/xml application/pdf
Identifier 10.4102/phcfm.v13i1.3174
 
Source African Journal of Primary Health Care & Family Medicine; Vol 13, No 1 (2021); 9 pages 2071-2936 2071-2928
 
Language eng
 
Relation
The following web links (URLs) may trigger a file download or direct you to an alternative webpage to gain access to a publication file format of the published article:

https://phcfm.org/index.php/phcfm/article/view/3174/5121 https://phcfm.org/index.php/phcfm/article/view/3174/5122 https://phcfm.org/index.php/phcfm/article/view/3174/5123 https://phcfm.org/index.php/phcfm/article/view/3174/5124
 
Coverage South Africa 2002-2019 Age; Gender; Ethnicity; Emergency Care Professionals
Rights Copyright (c) 2021 Ritika Tiwari, Raveen Naidoo, René English, Usuf Chikte https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
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