Provincial policy death-knell for iconic McCord Hospital?

Abstract

The 103-year-old McCord Hospital in Durban, globally famous for its training and affordable high-quality healthcare, has succumbed to an external funding crisis that will almost certainly turn it into a State health facility run by the KwaZulu-Natal health department.

McCord is one of South Africa’s last few government-subsidised mission hospitals (50% province-funded). Ironically, over the last three years it reduced a R22 million accumulated loss to just R6.8 million and was headed for a vitally needed surplus. This would have enabled it to undertake a pre-National Health Insurance revamp and continue plugging the gap in the hugely under-served ‘employed, uninsured’ population, while delivering a service at least twice as good as any equivalent-sized public sector hospital. (McCord asks patients to pay about 40% of what they would in the private sector.)