We explored some of the questions posed by digitalisation in an accompanying working paper focused on constitutional theory: Digitalisation, the ‘Fourth Industrial Revolution’ and the Constitutional Law of Privacy in South Africa. In that paper, we asked what legal resources are available in the South African legal system to respond to the risk and benefits posed by digitalisation. We argued that this question would be best answered by developing what we have termed a 'South African public law perspective'. In our view, while any particular legal system may often lag behind, the law constitutes an adaptive resource that can and should respond to disruptive technological change by re-examining existing concepts and creating new, more adequate conceptions. Our public law perspective reframes privacy law as both a private and a public good essential to the functioning of a constitutional democracy in the era of digitalisation. In this working paper, we take the analysis one practical step further: we use our public law perspective on digitalisation in the South African health sector. We do so because this sector is significant in its own right – public health is necessary for a healthy society – and also to further explore how and to what extent the South African constitutional framework provides resources at least roughly adequate for the challenges posed by the current 'digitalisation plus' era. The theoretical perspective we have developed is certainly relevant to digitalisation’s impact in the health sector. The social, economic and political progress that took place in the 20th century was strongly correlated with technological change of the first three industrial revolutions. The technological innovations associated with what many are terming ‘the fourth industrial revolution’ are also of undoubted utility in the form of new possibilities for enhanced productivity, business formation and wealth creation, as well as the enhanced efficacy of public action to address basic needs such as education and public health.
The burden of cancers associated with HIV in the South African public health sector, 2004–2014: a record linkage study
