Professional support services and capacity building for home-based care workers in South Africa

Abstract

Treatment at permanent primary health care (PHC) facilities is linked to home-based care (HBC) services, which are crucial for successful health outcomes. Home-based care workers (HBCWs) in South Africa have long been active in initiatives to enhance social and community health results. Moreover, Ward-Based Primary Health Care Outreach Teams and HBCWs are well-positioned in the country to provide HBC services. The aim is to explore professional support services and capacity building for HBCWs rendering services in communities. An exploratory qualitative design was used with in-depth, semi-structured interviews were conducted to gather data from managers and outreach team leaders in the Northern Tshwane region of Gauteng and the Madibeng area of the North-West province. Purposive sampling was employed to select 14 outreach team leaders and six managers for data collection. Data were collected until saturation was reached at 17 participants. Discussions were private, and participation was entirely optional. Watson human caring theory was used as method of HBCWs acquiring learning which is more than receiving information, as it also depends on the HBCWs ability to accurately assess and implement proper treatment and care to patients after training and capacity building(Gunawan, Aungsuroch, Watson, Marzilli, (2022). The findings have shown that poor professional support issues had a distructive effect on the performance of HBCWs.The Substantial gaps in capacity building effects from working with patients raised support needs such as:training and skills,need for human resource, supervision, ensuring integration of services, effective communication and improved condition of services. The gaps in training imply that HBCWs have insufficient knowledge, which can compromise the quality of care given to patients and may result in fatalities among patients. In South Africa, providing education will enable HBCWs to develop a career path and have a qualification to progress to more formal employment levels and be able function independently . HBCWs need training and skills in order to understand the diseases prevailing in the community they serve. Offering education and training to HBCWs in managing deadly disease is crucial to ensure that patients receive quality care and treatment. Developing HBCWs to acquire new skills and insight will further enable them to advance new viewpoints and insight, which may ease the burden of their ’ responsibilities and duties.