More Information on the Department of Health

Close to 10.9% (5 342 832) of South Africa's population live in the Western Cape. The population here has grown by 16.7% between Census 2001 and Community Survey 2007. As a result there were about 3% more patients per year treated at public health care facilities in 2009/10.

About 73% of those living in the Western Cape rely on state health services.

In 2009/10, approximately 15.8 million people received medical treatment at primary health care clinics. The ambulance services transported almost 462 000 patients to health facilities. Hospitals saw nearly 630 000 patients at their emergency centres, 1.67 million patients in their outpatient departments and treated over 550 000 short-term patients in 2009/10. Over 6 000 cataract operations were done in 2009/10. 23 291 new patients were started on HIV and AIDS treatment (anti-retro-viral treatment (ART)). At present 75 000 patients are receiving ART. Approximately 2.7 million patients receive treatment at their homes through the community-based carer programme.

Important successes in the year included the following:

• Approximately 2.47 million prescriptions were prepacked by the central dispensing unit. This has made a huge difference in reducing the waiting times at pharmacies at our clinics.
• As a result of one of our programmes, the mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) programme, only 3.6% of HIV positive mothers passed on the HIV infection to their babies.
• The TB cure rate is 79.4%, the highest in the country.
• Two new vaccines have been introduced to protect children against pneumonia and rotavirus infections (mainly diarrhoea).