The Return of the Pholela Experiment: Medical History and Primary Health Care in Post-Apartheid South Africa

Abstract

I examine why South Africa's pioneering Pholela model of primary health care, dating from the 1940s, held such appeal for the country's new policymakers after 1994, and why those policymakers have failed to make it the basis of an effective public health care system since then. In the 1940s, the innovative Pholela experiment had served as such a model, to be replicated gradually throughout the country until a new health care system in its image was finally in place. However, this vision was dashed by the hostility of the mainstream medical profession and, after 1948, even more so by the new apartheid government, causing the idea to wither and become no more than a vanishing memory. In the 1990s, the model resurfaced as part of the country's transition to democracy, eliciting great enthusiasm among a new generation of health policymakers. I conclude by looking at the fate to date of this second coming of the Pholela experiment.

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