AfriForum: Inquiry into private healthcare sector a waste of money and a front for state interference
2 October 2019
The civil rights organisation AfriForum is of the opinion that the market inquiry into private healthcare is a way to divert attention from the massive problems experienced in the public healthcare sector.
Dr Eugene Brink, AfriForum’s Health Spokesperson, says the inquiry unnecessarily makes scapegoats of the private sector while public hospitals are falling apart. “It is an expensive witch-hunt. The inquiry has to date cost more than R200 million and serves as a ploy to bully the private sector to provide services to the state cheaply under the guise of National Health Insurance (NHI).
“Healthcare is one of the most regulated sectors in the economy. The private sector’s share in healthcare in the country has in the last 20 years declined a great deal compared with the public sector due to this fact.”
According to Brink, the inquiry is simply a way to give the state greater power when large businesses retreat, and not to help smaller businesses. “My own research indicates that neither the larger hospital groups nor smaller hospitals are allowed to fulfil the growing demand for private medical services.