SA’s healthcare is down in the dumps

STUDY: ONE OF THE BOTTOM RANKERS IN WORLD SURVEY

Choose Swiss, Swedish or Norwegian doctors for the best standard.

Neither Canada nor Japan cracked the top 10 and South Africa fared dismally with a bottom rating, according to a ranking of healthcare quality in 195 countries, released yesterday.

Among nations with more than a million souls, top honours for 2015 went to Switzerland, followed by Sweden and Norway, though the healthcare gold standard remains tiny Andorra, a postage stamp of a country nestled between Spain (No 8) and France (No 15).

Iceland (No 2), Australia (No 6), Finland (No 7), the Netherlands (No 9) and financial and banking centre Luxembourg rounded out the first 10 finishers, according to a comprehensive study published in medical journal The Lancet.

Of the 20 countries heading up the list, all but Australia and Japan (No 11) are in western Europe, where virtually every nation boasts some form of universal health coverage.

The US – where a Republican Congress wants to peel back reforms that gave millions of people access to health insurance for the first time – ranked below Britain, which was placed 30th.

The Healthcare Access and Quality Index, based on death rates for 32 diseases that can be avoided or effectively treated with proper medical care, also tracked progress in each nation compared to the benchmark year of 1990.

Virtually all countries improved over that period, but many – especially in Africa and Oceania – fell further behind in providing basic care for their citizens.

With the exceptions of Afghanistan, Haiti and Yemen, the 30 countries at the bottom of the ranking were all in sub-Saharan Africa, with the Central African Republic suffering the worst standards of all.

The biggest underachievers in Asia included Indonesia, the Philippines, India and tiny Brunei, while in Africa it was Botswana, South Africa and Lesotho that had the most room for improvement.

“Despite improvements in healthcare quality and access over 25 years, inequality between the best- and worst-performing countries has grown,” said Christopher Murray, director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington, the leader of contributing experts.