Public sector district health system: Is seven to ten minutes enough for patient management?

Abstract

This paper looks at the reasons for the excessive workload of grass-root and primary health care physicians at the Mitchells Plain Community Health Centre in the Cape Town Metropolitan (CTM) South (Mitchells Plain) district in South Africa. The development of a municipality based district health system has created an opportunity to practice family medicine in Mitchells Plain, but lack of clinical time to practice family medicine in the current setting raises questions about the quality and efficiency of primary health care in the municipality based district based health system. To prevent the situation from developing into a Diseased District System!1, enough clinical time and dedicated resources are urgently required.