10 days left to submit commentary against bill on national health insurance
1 October 2019
The civil rights organisation AfriForum encourages the public to submit commentary against the destructive Bill on National Health Insurance (NHI). The submission period for commentary closes on 11 October 2019.
AfriForum submitted its commentary against the NHI at the Houses of Parliament in September. However, the public can still send AfriForum’s commentary to the Portfolio Committee for Health by visiting www.afriforum.co.za/en/divisions/campaigns/national-health-insurance/. The Committee Chairperson recently announced that the public hearings on NHI will commence in Mpumalanga and the Northern Cape at the end of October and the beginning of November, respectively. AfriForum plans on attending these as well as the other hearings.
The more people who submit commentary against this Bill and attend the public hearings, the better the chances that it would not be promulgated into law. “If this is to happen, the health system may very well collapse completely, which will result in poor healthcare for everyone in the country,” says Natasha Venter, Spokesperson for NHI at AfriForum.
If Dr Zweli Mkhize, Minister of Health, truly strives for quality healthcare for everyone, he should rather shape up the public healthcare system, as well as deregulate the private healthcare to prevent monopolies. This will result in more affordable private healthcare, which in turn will alleviate the pressure on the struggling public healthcare system.
“Dr Mkhize’s most important task is to address the corruption, misappropriation and unaccountability of officers in the public healthcare system. The National Prosecuting Authority has for example just recently announced that it would not prosecute any of the officials responsible for the Life Esidemeni tragedy. When guilty people walk free, more and more civil servants think that they are above the law and do not have to be accountable for their patients,” Venter concludes.
Issued by Carina Bester, Media Relations Officer, AfriForum, 1 October 2019
