HFACT held a Bonus Seminar in March, featuring Professor Sharon Fonn. Professor Fonn is a full professor at the University of Witwatersrand (WITS) in Johannesburg, South Africa, and is also a Visiting Professor at the School of Public Health and Community Medicine at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. She currently co-leads the Consortium of Advanced Research Training in Africa (CARTA).
Her presentation focused on recent research from the South African Health Market Inquiry. The Health Market Inquiry was an investigation into the competitiveness of the private health care sector in South Africa. Strategic purchasing has been put forward as a mechanism to avoid perverse over or under supply of services which can be inherant in fee for service and per capita funding of health services respectively. Strategic purchasing therefore makes many of the recommendations of the Health Market Inquiry relevant to public sector health service development and in particular governance of the health sector.
The discussion that followed Professor Fonn’s presentation will feed into a future HFACT research protocol. We look forward to this new avenue of research, and many thanks to Professor Fonn for speaking with us!
