Minister seeks NHI buy-in from Nehawu

NATIONAL Health Insurance (NHI) was on the cards for decades in many countries but was delayed because private-health practitioners were opposed to it, said technical health specialist in the Presidency Dr Aquina Thulare.

Thulare was speaking at the National Education, Health and Allied Workers’ Union (Nehawu) seminar on the NHI at the University of KwaZulu-Natal yesterday. She said the NHI would assist people who could not afford medical aid and were receiving poor service at private hospitals.

She said the exorbitant cost of private health care did not guarantee the best treatment.

She gave an example of “a prominent doctor”, whom she did not name, but who recently had a car accident in Rustenburg and died in a private hospital due to poor medical treatment.

“When she got to the private hospital they did all the tests, scans and everything. They waited for an anaesthetist because they could see that she was bleeding.

“After four hours of waiting, the anaesthetist did not arrive and she succumbed. We are told that the anaesthetist had gone to play golf,” Thulare said.

She called on Nehawu members to make their submissions about the NHI before the October 11 deadline.

“We heard that 31 000 comments, of which 1 000 extensively written comments were submitted in opposition to the NHI.

“We are saying, comrades must submit their comments,” she said.

Meanwhile, SACP deputy general secretary Solly Mapaila launched an attack on the private-health sector, saying it was opposed to the NHI in order to continue making a profit out of poor South Africans.

Mapaila said the government should launch the new public health insurance system to protect the poor from being exploited.

“The NHI is important for the poor, and for workers, because you don’t have to pay for the health care service, and you cannot be refused treatment, because you don’t have money.

“The private sector does not want to share the resources, and the government would ensure that everyone has access to national health, which is what the private sector does not want.

“That would stop them from making super profits out of people’s illness, and we should never allow the private sector to determine who lives and who does not,” said Mapaila.

He said only the government could ensure the sustainability of the NHI by ensuring that the rich subsidise the health care service for the poor.

The seminar was organised by Nehawu so that its members could air their views, and understand the importance of the NHI.

Mapaila described the NHI as the democratic government’s greatest achievement. He said it was “absolute nonsense” that the government cannot run the NHI based on the fact that the state-owned enterprises were collapsing due to corruption and lack of capacity.

He said the government has achieved many things for the sake of the poor, “we continue to be where we are because of the government”.

“The achievement of the public service can never be comparable to the private sector, which is profit-driven,” Mapaila said.