Claims on health care: a decision-making framework for equity, with application to treatment for HIV/AIDS in South Africa

Trying to determine how best to allocate resources in health care is especially difficult when resources are severely constrained, as is the case in all developing countries. This is particularly true in South Africa currently where the HIV epidemic adds significantly to a health service already overstretched by the demands made upon it. This paper proposes a framework for determining how best to allocate scarce health care resources in such circumstances. This is based on communitarian claims. The basis of possible claims considered include: the need for health care, specified both as illness and capacity to benefit; whether or not claimants have personal responsibility in the conditions that have generated their health care need; relative deprivation or disadvantage; and the impact of services on the health of society and on the social fabric. Ways of determining these different claims in practice and the weights to be attached to them are also discussed. The implications for the treatment of HIV/AIDS in South Africa are spelt out.