Improving Access to Pediatric Cardiac Care in the Developing World: the South African Perspective

PURPOSE OF REVIEW: The paper outlines the current status of health care and pediatric cardiac services in South Africa and the challenges faced in providing pediatric cardiac care in the country. RECENT FINDINGS: As infant and child mortality rates in South Africa and most of Sub-Saharan Africa continue to decline, establishing and improving the infrastructure to manage congenital heart disease increases in importance. SUMMARY: South Africa has well-established pediatric cardiac units in most major centers in the country. These have been able to train sufficient numbers of pediatric cardiologists to double the number in the country in just over a decade as well as train fellows from surrounding countries. A significant proportion of funding for this training comes from non-government sources. The number of pediatric cardiologists is however still far less than required with services spread unevenly throughout the country. Pediatric cardiac surgical services remain severely constrained with an urgent need to train more pediatric cardiac surgeons. Further progress depends not only on focussing resources on cardiac disease but also improvements in the health care systems and socioeconomic conditions in general.