Claims on health care: a decision-making framework for equity, with application to treatment for HIV/AIDS in South Africa

This paper proposes a framework for determining how best to allocate scarce health care resources in such circumstances. This is based on communitarian claims. The basis of possible claims considered include: the need for health care, specified both as illness and capacity to benefit; whether or not claimants have personal responsibility in the conditions that have generated their health care need; relative deprivation or disadvantage; and the impact of services on the health of society and on the social fabric. Ways of determining these different claims in practice and the weights to be attached to them are also discussed. The implications for the treatment of HIV/AIDS in South Africa are spelt out.