SA health practitioners reluctant to work under NHI: Research

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Research by Solidarity’s network of medical professionals has found that many South African specialists and general practitioners would rather close their practices than work under the government’s National Health Insurance (NHI) scheme.

The NHI bill was recently approved by the National Council of Provinces (NCOP), and now only requires President Cyril Ramaphosa’s signature to become law.

Solidarity’s economic researcher, Theuns du Buisson says, “The major concern seems to be the freedom that doctors currently have- especially in private practice, where they can decide how many patients they’d like to take on. If the NHI comes in, they would no longer have that freedom, and they’d have to take on all patients that are assigned to them by the state. So, the networking of medical professionals will be impacted by that and basically, they’re worried that their freedom will be infringed upon.”

Business organisations slam NHI Bill: Cas Coovadia

Lack of consultation

The Health Department has refuted allegations that it has not considered public participation in its process to introduce the NHI.

The NCOP passed the NHI Bill despite criticism from healthcare organisations, businesses and opposition that there’s been a lack of consultation.

The department’s Deputy Director-General Dr Nicholas Crisp says he attended some consultative sessions.

“In terms of consultation, I’ve personally attended almost every one of the parliamentary hearings through the National Assembly and the NCOP over the last 2 and a half years since COVID and there has been lots of input I have personally read all 117 of the presentations that were made some them I attended as well. And I’ve heard the debates and discussions that took place in the various committees.”