South Africa To Achieve Universal Health Coverage

South Africa is set to attain a universal health coverage as the Government is set to provide free healthcare in private hospitals in addition to Governments hospitals.

President Cyril Ramaphosa expected to sign the National Health Insurance (NHI) into law on May 14, 2024.

Mr Ramaphosa vowed to reform South Africa’s two-tier health system, in which a publicly funded sector that serves most of the population is overcrowded and run-down, while some people access better treatment through private insurance.

However, the country’s main opposition party, joined by some labour and business groups have threatened a court action to fight a bill.

The National Health Insurance Bill when becomes law is expected to gradually limit the role of private insurance, create a new public fund to provide access for everyone, and set the fees that private doctors can charge.

Supporters call it a generational change to reverse persistent inequality dating to the apartheid era.

Opponents of the bill say the plans are inadequately funded, and will limit patient choice, harm the quality of care and drive talented doctors out of the country.

They have described the bill as “populist, irrational and unaffordable”.

The main opposition Democratic Alliance is therefore challenging the law and has pledged to pursue it all the way to the Constitutional Court,” its leader John Steenhuisen said.

“Our legal team was briefed months ago already and will file our legal challenge against this devastating legislation without delay.”

The bill has the strong support of the South African Medical Association Trade Union representing most public sector doctors, which called it “a monumental shift towards achieving universal health coverage and ensuring that every South African has access to quality healthcare irrespective of their socio-economic status.”

The South African Health Professionals Collaboration (SAHPC), which represents 25,000 healthcare workers in the public and private sectors, said it was exploring a legal challenge against a bill that would “reverse, rather than progress, equitable, quality healthcare in South Africa”.

Business lobby BUSA said it would consider its options, including lawsuits to fight a measure it called “unworkable, unaffordable, and not in line with the Constitution”.

Source: Reuters