A list of the top 20 hospitals nationally, based on patient satisfaction scores given by some of Discovery Health's 1.2million members last year, sheds light on where you may have the best experience.
The medium-sized Gateway Private Hospital in Durban came out tops, followed by three small outfits: Lowveld Hospital in Mpumalanga, Cormed Clinic in Gauteng and Sunningdale Hospital in North West.
At least six small, medium and large Mediclinic hospitals made it into the top 20, spanning Gauteng, Western Cape and KwaZulu-Natal.
Eight Western Cape hospitals made it to the top 20, followed by Gauteng (five), KwaZulu-Natal (four) and North West (two).
The survey entails 22 questions in eight categories. These include overall rating of the hospital stay, doctor and nurse communication, pain management, staff responsiveness, hospital environment and medicine and discharge information.
For the sake of fairness, the analysis considered factors that hospitals could not control, such as the nature of illness, age and gender.
Discovery's quality-care head, Dr Roshini Moodley Naidoo, said there had been a big increase in responses since 2013.
There had been gradual improvement in scores for nursing care, communication and sharing medical information.
Scores for the hospital environment had shown no significant change since 2010, but hospitals were being rated up to 8% better than three years ago.
- TMG Digital
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