Connections between post-1994 Health Care and Street-level Bureaucracy

Abstract

Performance metrics continue to be a useful tool for modifying bureaucratic procedures in the workplace, although the majority of bureaucracy research and intervention has been centred on increasing efficiency. Lipsky (1980) contends that street-level bureaucracy is compelled to consider the public objectives of efficiency and cost effectiveness, except for unique circumstances like a new service plan for locating clients. This conceptual article, which is based on secondary sources like journals, explains how the provision of health services changed during the apartheid era and how it was notably progressive considering the passage of laws protecting patients’ constitutional rights. The article further argues that improvements in people’s access to health care were brought about by the democratic dispensation, departing from a time when segregation of South African health services was regulated by law.