IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/jinter/v16y2005i4p431-440.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Costs of district hospitals in South Africa

Author

Listed:
  • Abiodun Olukoga

    (Abiodun Olukoga is a Public Health Physician and Health Economist engaged in postgraduate research at the School of Economics, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa. Correspondence to Dr. Abiodun Olukoga, Division of Economics, Howard College Campus, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa. Tel: +27 31 260 3562 (W), Fax: +27 31 260 2811 (W), E-mail: aolukoga@yahoo.com)

  • Geoff Harris

    (University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa)

Abstract

The district hospitals are an integral part of the district health system (DHS) in South Africa fulfilling several important functions. Using data obtained from relevant published reports. The district hospital costs were allocated using the ‘ingredients approach’ that combined a top-down method and step-down sequence. The costs in the treatment of patients were grouped into six cost centres: buildings, drugs, equipment, materials, personnel and utilities. The unit costs were broadly grouped into two categories using the hospital departments (fixed and variable costs) and input use (direct and indirect costs). More than 30% of the total public expenditure on hospitals in the country was on district hospitals between 1996/97 and 1998/99. They had more beds per population (1.08/1000) than other public hospitals. The bed occupancy rates in these hospitals were generally very low varying between 57% and 75%. The average length of stay (ALOS) was within acceptable range in the hospital except in Osindisweni hospital. Personnel costs were more than 70% and drugs only 3% to 6% of the total costs. McCord hospital was the most expensive using total and unit costs. Harrismith hospital had the lowest total costs and Osindisweni hospital the lowest unit cost. Most of the costs were fixed or direct costs in all the hospitals. There is the need for the adoption of measures to ensure that the hospitals are efficiently run while maintaining access for vulnerable groups.

Suggested Citation

  • Abiodun Olukoga & Geoff Harris, 2005. "Costs of district hospitals in South Africa," Journal of Interdisciplinary Economics, , vol. 16(4), pages 431-440, July.
  • Handle: RePEc:sae:jinter:v:16:y:2005:i:4:p:431-440
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://jie.sagepub.com/content/16/4/431.abstract
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:jinter:v:16:y:2005:i:4:p:431-440. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.