| Summary: | Thesis (MBA)--Stellenbosch University, 2012. === An exploratory, cross-sectional, qualitative survey was conducted to describe the market of lower
income mothers who had recently given birth to a child in a state hospital in the Western Cape
(WC) region of South Africa. These mothers were viewed by the researcher as potential
consumers of low cost maternity plans which would provide for maternity care in Active Birthing
Units (ABUs) in the private healthcare sector in South Africa. The motivation behind the research
stems from various sources. The currently inequitable healthcare system in South Africa, which
has been described as a two tier system in the recent Policy Paper on National Health Insurance
(Republic of South Africa, 2011: 4-5), is one such source. Reports of poor maternity care in the
South African public healthcare system (Vogel, 2011: E1097-E1098), is another source of
motivation behind the research report. It was apparent to the researcher that given the low quality
of maternity care in state hospitals, a potential market of healthcare consumers – who would be
willing to pay a small premium for what they considered to be a more acceptable level of maternity
care in the private healthcare sector – could exist. This view was supported by research conducted
by Joan Costa and Jaume Garcia (2003: 587-599) in which the “quality gap” was confirmed as a
driving force behind the demand for private health care. This focus on the lower socioeconomic
groups as a market for private sector goods and services was found to be well described by
Prahalad (2005).
The researcher conducted interviews amongst mothers who had delivered a child in a public
hospital in the previous two years. A convenience sample of 100 mothers was selected in a
shopping mall in the Western Cape (WC). The researcher administered a structured questionnaire
during a face-to-face interview with each of the 100 respondents. The respondents were rewarded
with a shopping voucher to the value of 50 ZAR, which was both a prerequisite specified by the
management of the shopping mall and consistent with rewards offered in similar studies (Francis,
Battle-Fisher, Liverpool, Hipple, Mosavel, Soogun, & Nokuthula, 2011). Data collected from the
questionnaire included both data on willingness to pay (WTP), as well as demographic data, which
provided interesting insights into a relatively under-researched market segment.
A statistical analysis of the data collected revealed that 31 respondents (31%) reported a positive
WTP for private maternity care. A statistically significant relationship was revealed between
respondents’ WTP and the birth experience the respondents had had during their most recent
pregnancy, whereby mothers who had described their most recent birth experience as “poor” were
significantly more likely to exhibit a positive WTP for private maternity care (p=0.00006). Significant
relationships between respondents' WTP for private maternity care and their age and household
size were also discovered, whereby younger mothers were more likely to be willing to pay than
older mothers (p=0.02) and mothers from smaller households were also significantly more likely to
be willing to pay than mothers from larger households (p=0.02). Amongst a sub group of 32 respondents deemed to have potential monthly savings, those with a higher monthly household
income were more likely to exhibit positive WTP (p=0.02753) than were those with higher levels of
monthly expenditure (p=0.04093).
The researcher acknowledged that the limitations of the research included the fact that
respondents were selected non-randomly, as a small isolated sample, which made the
extrapolation of the results to the larger population of South African mothers impossible. The
research did, however, serve to describe the demographic characteristics of a new and relatively
under researched target market of mothers from the lower socioeconomic segment of the WC.
Data gleaned from this survey will serve to inform further research into this target market, so as to
complete a more comprehensive feasibility analysis for the establishment of low cost maternity
care packages and ABUs in South Africa.
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