BUSA comments on Presidential Health Summit
22 August 2024
BUSA has consistently supported the goals of the Presidential Health Compact since its inception in 2018. These goals were based on the need for the public and private healthcare sectors to work collaboratively to improve the overall health system, focusing on urgent projects related to health infrastructure, human resource planning, management capacity building, medico-legal risk management, and health IT system interoperability, amongst others. BUSA remains committed to these projects and objectives.
However, BUSA has not signed the current new version of the Presidential Health Compact because it has been unilaterally amended by Government, transforming its original intent and objectives into an explicit pledge of support for the NHI Act. These changes to the Health Compact were made without consultation.
While reference was made to NHI in the previous version of the Compact, it was only mentioned in the context of longer term developments. BUSA has always supported a collaborative, workable NHI rather than the current single-fund model which is both unaffordable and unimplementable. We have consistently expressed this position at Health Summit discussions, and in our submissions on the NHI White Paper and the NHI Bill, offering constructive recommendations and proposals to achieve the policy objectives without risking the country's finances or negatively impacting taxpayers. These have all been ignored.
BUSA remains committed to supporting the projects and actions identified under the original version of the Health Compact, and to building a strengthened and integrated health system that works for all South Africans. It's disappointing that the initiative has been altered to endorse an NHI framework that many stakeholders, including ourselves, do not support because it is unworkable.
BUSA maintains that structured, formal and urgent engagement with Government is required, not only on the Health Compact, but also on the NHI Act, to ensure the country is able to deliver healthcare reform and advance universal health coverage without damaging the economy and the existing skills, innovation, resources and experience that reside in the private healthcare sector. This engagement should include the Presidency, National Treasury and the Department of Health.
Issued by BUSA, 22 August 2024
