Centre for Health Policy

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Browsing Centre for Health Policy by Author "Abrahams, Naeema"

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    The state of sexual assualt services: Findings from a situation analysis of services in South Africa
    (Centre for Health Policy - School of Public Health - University of the Witwatersrand, 2003-10) Christofides, Nicola; Webster, Naomi; Jewkes, Rachel; Penn-Kekana, Loveday; Martin, Lorna; Abrahams, Naeema; Kim, Julia
    Women often receive very poor quality medical care after sexual assault. This has been highlighted in work done by Human Rights Watch, Suffla and others that explored services in some provinces. No systematic investigation of services in all provinces had been carried out. In 2001, the National Department of Health prioritised improving sexual assault services and the research presented in this report was conducted to inform this process. The aim was to investigate sexual assault services provided by health sector in South Africa with an in-depth look at North West province. Two district hospitals; a regional hospital and a tertiary hospital (where they existed) were randomly sampled in all provinces. The total number of hospitals in the sampling frame varied from province to province. This was adjusted for in analysis through weighting. At each hospital, we interviewed two doctors and two nurses who examined or assisted in the management of a patient who presented at the hospital after rape. A primary health care clinic, which referred patients to the sampled hospital in each district, was identified and a nurse at the clinic was interviewed. A total of 155 providers were interviewed. A facility checklist was completed at each hospital. In North West Province, 199 nurses and doctors were interviewed from 20 hospitals and a primary health care clinic that referred patients to these hospitals. In addition, district managers, police, social workers and representatives of NGOs addressing gender-based violence were interviewed.