Migrant women's access to public health care services in Makhado, Limpopo: a case of Zimbabwean women

Tshililo, Takalani Yolanda

Migrant women's access to public health care services in Makhado, Limpopo: a case of Zimbabwean women

Master Thesis

2020

Abstract

Migrant women are often omitted within the migrant discourse/research, with that in mind, the research study brings to the fore migrant women's experiences when accessing public health care services within underdeveloped communities. The study explored Zimbabwean migrant women's experiences in accessing public health care services in Makhado, a small town based in Limpopo, South Africa which has only two public health care services namely, Louis Trichardt Memorial Hospital and Louis Trichardt clinic. To conduct this study, ethical clearance was obtained in November 2018 from the Department of Sociology at the University of Cape Town. The qualitative research method was adopted in collecting the data. The study conducted in-depth interviews with five Zimbabwean migrant women who had made use of the two public health care services in Makhado. Field notes, diary entry, an impromptu focus group were used to collect the study data. The sample for the study was purposively selected. The study worked with a total of twelve participants, in-depth interviews with five Zimbabwean women, and a focus group with seven health care workers. The collected data was manually transcribed and was analyzed using the framework analysis. Main themes and sub-themes were extracted from the transcribed interview scripts. The study revealed that migrants accessing the two hospitals in Makhado faced challenges such as language barriers, discrimination, and adverse health personnel attitudes based on the patient's citizenship status. Furthermore, the challenges that nurses are faced within their workplace, which include lack of resources, absenteeism, long working hours and overcrowded public health care services within their workplace contributed towards their negative attitude in assisting patients. As a result, migrants bore the challenges faced by the nurses within the public health care services. Therefore, the migrants reverted to having other alternatives such as traditional healers, churches, connections with nurses working in the hospitals, private hospitals and over the counter medication. However, participants underscored that in order for betterment within the public health care services, the following measures ought to be implemented, these include the introduction of independent centres, an increase of mobile clinics, increased number of interpreters, better working environment for the health personnel within the public health care facilities and intensive education training of the health personnel around the awareness migrant issues when accessing public health care services. Foucault's (1980) theory on power and knowledge, played a significant role in understanding the operational systems of public health care services. It also assisted in understanding how public health care services function, to exclude and control migrant patients, through the introduction of fees and required documentation to access public health care services.