| Summary: | Student Number : 0008922X -
MPH research report -
Faculty of Health Sciences === The use of the mobile clinics for rendering health care services in South Africa is part
of the services rendered according to the Primary Health Care Service Package that
was officially published in 2001. Mobile clinics have been found to be instrumental in
rendering of health care especially in the rural and semi- rural areas. In the majority of
these areas, the mobile clinic is the only source of health care provision at community
level. Lack of well developed infrastructure and poor roads contribute to
inaccessibility of health care services in rural and semi-rural areas. Health
programmes are often of poor quality or offer incomplete services. Factors such as
lack of knowledge of available health care services, satisfaction with the quality and
range of services provided, and unavailability of the mobile clinic service when there
is a health need, can result in the mobile health care clinic being less utilized.
The purpose of the study was to address the following question: What are mobile
clinic users’ opinions on health care service provision in the Muldersdrift area
Gauteng Province? To answer the question three research objectives were
formulated. These were to: describe the mobile clinic users’ level of service utilization,
to assess their level of knowledge of available health care services and to determine
their level of satisfaction with the services provided.
To achieve the study objectives, an exploratory, descriptive survey was used as the
research design. Three sampling techniques were used in this study. Cluster
sampling was used for developing sampling framework for the 35 mobile points.
Stratified sampling used to stratification of the mobile points. A non- probability
convenience sampling was then used for final selection of the nine mobile clinic
points and for selection of a sample size of 94 mobile clinic users’ to be included in
the study. Data were analysed using the Statistical Package 7.0.
The results show that the mobile clinic service was optimally utilized, 59% had used
the service more than thrice within a period of six months. The majority of participants
(89.3%) had knowledge of all the services being offered on the mobile clinic.
Very few respondents (19.5%) were aware of the availability of HIV and AIDS
counseling and testing on the mobile clinic. All most all the respondents (98.9%) were
satisfied the range of services offered on the mobile clinic. Almost half (48.9%) were
not satisfied with the service being offered once a month, (4.4%) with the attitude of
the staff, (5.3%) with treatment of common ailments and (2%) said the mobile clinic
service was bad.
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