Healthcare in South Africa ranges from free basic services by the government, to extremely specialized and technically sound healthcare services accessible via both the private and public sector healthcare management institutes. The public sector is long-drawn-out and currently facing human resource crunch in many places.
The private sector is run principally on money-making lines and caters to high- and middle-income groups who happen to be members of healthcare schemes. This two-tiered structure is not only unbalanced and unreachable to a bulk portion of South Africans, but healthcare units in the public sector have suffered deprived management, insufficient funding and fading infrastructure.
The government administration desires to use the lately started Academy for Leadership and Management in Healthcare to set standards, procedures and principles for the headship and management of healthcare units in South Africa. The Department of Health started an orientation program for the academy as an initiative for management professionals to increase essential proficiency to run these institutions powerfully.
Healthcare professionals are often preoccupied and busy with their schedules, Healthcare management institutes in South Africa should innovate ways to train them in such a way that suits their busy schedules. Online courses will be very handy and James Lind Institute is a pioneer in providing online self-paced courses in healthcare management.