When the constitution of the Republic of SA was drafted, wherein the government advocated for the establishment of NHI and universal health care coverage, youth unemployment was 29.92%; today it is 61%.
Today, general unemployment is 32.9%, the highest in the world. It has always been emphasised that National Health Insurance is the funding tool for universal health care coverage. All SOEs have been spectacularly destroyed by the government, so we urge the National Assembly to take the interests of the nation to heart when debating this emotive subject.
It doesn’t help to be highlighting all the advantages of universal health-care coverage when we all know it will never be successfully achieved in a country where only five of the 696 health facilities which were inspected for quality patient care passed in 2016/2017, with 691 failing the inspections.
Where all pilot studies on NHI failed; where the national health budget for all hospitals and clinics in the country received a measly R60 billion; where there is no effective control of immigration, resulting in the meagre health resources being exploited by foreigners; where there is a chronic shortage of doctors and nurses.
While many of them are languishing at home unemployed because the government has no money to employ them; where patients sometimes go without food; and where overcrowding in one hospital has led to some neonates being nursed in cardboard boxes.
So, where will equal, high-quality patient care come from? The only result will be the total collapse of whatever is left of our health-care system. However, Life Esidimeni has shown us that no amount of reasoning can convince the government to move away from its ideology no matter what is at stake.
* Cometh Dube-Makholwa, Midrand.
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.
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