Facilities for children in state and provincial hospitals

A limited survey of provincial and state hospital facilities for children in the RSA was carried out through a questionnaire. Replies were received from 195 hospitals from the provinces of the Cape, Transvaal and Natal as well as from the independent homeland of Ciskei. These hospitals represented 90.3% of the beds in these areas. It was found that there were many more black children per available bed than white (632 v. 416) and that beds for black children had a much higher occupation rate than those for whites (+/- 85% v. +/- 50%). Rural black children were considerably worse off than their urban counterparts. Many hospitals did not have full-time medical officers to look after their paediatric patients. It is recommended that future resources be directed at improving facilities for rural black children and opening lines of communication between existing rural hospitals and the large academic hospitals.