Access Now Part 1

Everyone is talking about Access to Youth Friendly Health Services… but what does it actually mean?

Access to Youth friendly health services, simply means that health services in South Africa should be easily accessible by youth who would like to utilize those services. These services provided can be Free HIV counselling and testing, sexual reproductive health, as well as any other health information or services which the youth might need.

This means the following:

• The operating hours of the heath facility need to be convenient.
• The health facility needs be situated in a such a way which allows for easy access to the health facility, ie it needs to be convenient
• As far as possible no over crowding and long waiting periods
• The service provided should be youth friendly  private and confidential.

Why is this important?  
According to an article in the South African medical journal:

• South African youth continue to be vulnerable, with an HIV prevalence of 7.3% reported for 15 – 24-year-olds in 2012.
• A survey conducted in 2007 in four of the nine SA provinces showed that 19.2% of females aged 12 – 19 years had had at least one pregnancy, the majority of which were unwanted, while 5.8% of males in the same age group had impregnated a girl.

http://www.samj.org.za/index.php/samj/article/view/8809/6235

With all these alarming statistics we can see why Youth Want Access and why they want it Now.

The question then becomes… Is this realistic, and if so how can it be achieved.

We will look at these questions in the blog to follow…