ABSTRACT
De Beer makes the compelling assertion that historically health services in South Africa had no rational development. They emerged in the process of meeting the particular needs of the ruling class. Hospitals were established for sailors who worked for trading companies that came via the Cape of Good Hope. The outset of the Second World War heralded declines in the health situation for black people. In response to the war efforts the economy expanded rapidly with the national income increasing by 300 percent between 1933 and 1947. The first hospitals for black people were built in the nineteenth century by Sir George Grey - one in Pietermaritzburg in Natal, and the other in Kingwilliamstown in the Cape province. The KwaZulu region of the province has more people than the Natal region and yet it only receives four percent of the health budget allocation.
