Privatisation of South African health care: in whose interest?

1. INTRODUCTION Privatisation has today become a domestic term which is both officially and colloquially in frequent use. Health care is but one of several areas which has in recent times been increasingly subjected to the prominence of this concept and strategy. Both as a way of thinking and as a policy measure privatisation is uncritically accepted by South Africans as ^^accom p lish ed fact. The laity as well as TKilth care professionals have accepted privatisation as a welcome strategy in coping with many of the acute problems in the sphere of health care. In this manner it is indeed presented to us — and without reflection we buy the idea of the privatisation of health care, and simultaneously the justification thereof for the South African context. We are sceptical of privatisation, especially regarding health care. Our scepticism originates in the narrowness of perspective, lamentable contradictions and preferences, and insensitivity as to the consequences of privatisation for particular people and groups — all which are frequently evident in pleas for and justifications of this policy. These are the kind of issues we would like to address. We would like to analyse privatisation as a social phenomenon, explicate the nature, the many