Worlds Apart :Parkinson's in south africa

In its latest report on how Parkinson's is managed around the world, EPDA Plus spoke to two key disease authorities in South Africa and discovered a country faced with numerous high-profile economic, cultural, political and health-related challenges. As a result, manypeople with Parkinson's are going without the treatments and care they should be entitled to.

South Africa has a population of about 45 million people. At present, about 40 million of them don't have the financial resources to afford a private healthcare plan and, therefore, rely on the availability of doctors from the state sector. This is roughly on the same lines asthe UK's National Health Service (NHS) only vastly less funded and largely dependent on a tiered system of clinics, district hospitals and academic centres (of which there are seven for the entire country). The country is also sadly lacking in neurologists, especially in the state sector– about 25 bear the responsibility for 40 million people. Although there are geriatricians in South Africa, they are in even shorter supply than neurologists.

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