The ANC’s much-contested National Health Insurance scheme has been a talking point for politicians for close to two decades since being published in the Government Gazette in 2003.
According to the bill, the NHI will be available for “all South Africans irrespective of their socio-economic status, including residents with long-term visas”. The fund will also require patients to be “registered and be identifiable at the point of use” and will “need to register through the Department of Home Affairs’ identification system” in order to access services through the country’s iteration of universal healthcare.
In its current form, the NHI suggests a “regression of rights for non-nationals”, says Vearey. It suggests that only documented refugees out of all non-nationals would be covered by the NHI. This has concerned health experts, who called the language the policy uses a “slippery slope of xenophobia”. But health experts argue that unless there is a revolution in the distribution and number of health professionals — especially in rural areas — the NHI will fail. According to the latest South African Health Review report, the NHI will remain a “pipe dream” if human resources for health are not urgently addressed.
The DA’s answer to the lack of healthcare workers is “remove racial quotas as they apply to access to medical school with the aim of increasing the cohort of doctors and nurses each year — while still ensuring diversity”. The party also makes bold commitments, such as ensuring that each district in South Africa has a 24-hour regional or tertiary hospital with “a minimum of 450 beds… with internal medicine, paediatrics, obstetrics, gynaecology and general surgeons by 2022.”
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