Partnering with South Africa’s Private Sector to Provide MMC Services

Dr. Maphisa & Partners’ clinic waiting room in Johannesburg.

The Health Communication Capacity Collaborative (HC3) has published a case study on how a private medical practice successfully partnered with the Center for HIV and AIDS Prevention Studies (CHAPS) in South Africa to provide free medical male circumcision (MMC).

Dr. Maphisa & Partners provides high quality, yet affordable, healthcare in Johannesburg and surrounding townships. CHAPS – one of the largest NGOs focused on MMC as HIV prevention in Africa – approached the practice’s founder Dr. Shephard Maphisa in 2012 to ask him to provide MMC free of charge. His clinic already provided MMC but not at a very high volume.

Maphisa had some initial concerns that the free service might not be well received by his existing private clinic patients. But after receiving support and training from CHAPS, he launched in December 2012 and found it actually created new patients for his clinic. Family members of young men undergoing MMC came back to access Dr. Maphisa & Partners other services. And the clinic has gone from performing 500 circumcisions annually to nearly 12,000 in the past two years.

This partnership and similar ones initiated by CHAPS illustrate how the private sector can play a key role in scaling up MMC in South Africa to help prevent HIV.

READ the full case study, which includes demand creation strategies as well as a list of key lessons learned.