School-based healthcare services in Cape Town, South Africa: When there’s a will, there’s a way
African Journal of Primary Health Care & Family Medicine
| Field | Value | |
| Title | School-based healthcare services in Cape Town, South Africa: When there’s a will, there’s a way | |
| Creator | Ahmed, Nadia Pike, Carey Lee, Jessica Wagner, Colleen Bekker, Linda-Gail | |
| Description | South African secondary schools do not deliver school-based healthcare services despite high rates of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection, sexually transmitted infections, and unplanned pregnancies among adolescents, ongoing sub-optimal uptake of healthcare services from public healthcare facilities by adolescents, and national policy support for such services. A pilot school health nursing programme (SHNP) was offered to 44 secondary schools in a single health sub-district within the Western Cape, South Africa. The programme included fortnightly nurse visits that offered a standard package of healthcare services, including sexual and reproductive health services tailored according to school preference.Of the 44 schools, 42 gave permission for the SHNP to operate, with the majority of schools selecting the full comprehensive package of services. Programme implementation was truncated such that delivery only occurred over two school terms (20 weeks); however, 344 students attended the service. The majority of service users were female with a median age of 16 years, and over a half attended the service for sexual and reproductive health services.Contribution: A key challenge to school-based health service delivery arose from inadequate stakeholder support and differential views of adolescent healthcare needs among government officials, parents, guardians, school staff and governing bodies. These findings motivate for ongoing multi-level stakeholder engagement around the reality of adolescent healthcare needs and further opportunities to deliver school health services for longer time periods such that their feasibility, acceptability, and potential to impact healthcare outcomes can be assessed in this setting. | |
| Publisher | AOSIS | |
| Date | 2023-10-27 | |
| Identifier | 10.4102/phcfm.v15i1.4216 | |
| Source | African Journal of Primary Health Care & Family Medicine; Vol 15, No 1 (2023); 3 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/4216/6584
https://phcfm.org/index.php/phcfm/article/view/4216/6585
https://phcfm.org/index.php/phcfm/article/view/4216/6586
https://phcfm.org/index.php/phcfm/article/view/4216/6587
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