Health Department must engage with the public for the health system to work

The health department is making unrealistic promises to the public about health care and National Health Insurance (NHI) while at the same time showing complete contempt for engaging in any discussion about every aspect of health care.

We call on the department to urgently re-evaluate its approach to public consultation; if it does not do so, the NHI will not succeed, and the public health system will continue to crumble.

Some examples are:

• Parliament's health portfolio committee meeting has met only eight times since the election, in comparison, for example, to the environment committee, which has met 18 times so far. None of these meetings have dealt with the country's biggest health issue at the moment, the NHI.
• Although it is international Foetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS) Day today, the ANC turned down a request from the DA to have a debate on this subject. Instead, parliament will tomorrow be debating the utterly fatuous subject of "The meaning and implications of the activist parliament and state as propagated by Zuma in his State of the Nation address and subsequent gatherings and how this is meant to fulfil the developmental needs, in particular the poor and marginalised majority". There is no purpose to this debate other than to give MPs an opportunity to flatter and grovel. On the other hand, FAS is a major health crisis in South Africa, which affects more than 10% of children in some parts of the country.
• A document on the ANC's proposals for the NHI was promised at the end of June, but it has still not been produced. 
• The antenatal clinic survey, which is one of the few credible sources of information about HIV infections in South Africa, is published every year. But although it is nearly the end of 2009, the 2008 survey has still not been released.

The DA believes that we urgently need to find solutions to our many health crises. The DA has many proposals to do this, as do many other interest groups in South Africa. All of these inputs must be taken into consideration to make our health system work.

Statement issued by Mike Waters, MP, Democratic Alliance shadow minister of health, September 9 2009

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