Background: In 1994, the democratically elected post-apartheid government inherited a highly fragmented, centralised and inequitable public care service. Much progress has been made in unifying the services, previously divided by race, and establishing a district health system. In Cape Town, a metropolitan area of 3.3 million people, the previous fragmentation of the services has resulted in marked inequity in public primary health care expenditure along racial and geographical lines. The extent of this inequity has not previously been quantifie
