Doctors' strike: State must put NHI plans on hold and get basics of health system right

The Democratic Alliance (DA) hopes that the continuing strike by health professionals in the public sector will finally compel the government to tackle the inefficiencies of the health system that have created this crisis. The state must stop its plans for the proposed National Health Insurance (NHI) system, and instead make the system that we have work more efficiently in order to liberate the funds needed to pay our health professionals better.

At the first opportunity we will call for a debate in Parliament on the country's crumbling health care system, and the urgent steps that need to be taken to ensure that quality health care is provided to all South Africans, and that health professionals are paid the wages they deserve.

The DA gives its full support to the demands being made by health professionals for urgent attention to their pay situation, but new health minister Aaron Motsoaledi's claim that it is not a crisis but a "serious challenge" does not suggest that this is about to happen.

The new government included in its election manifesto the promise to install an expensive and complex new National Health Insurance scheme within the next five years - although there is still no agreement with the Treasury over how we will afford it. But it continues to neglect the basic principles of good health management and fails to take seriously the problems faced by the doctors and nurses who run the system.

The evidence from reports this weekend, and from many other sources, is that massive amounts of money meant for treating patients is being wasted unnecessarily.

The DA calls on the Minister of Health to:

• Conduct a survey of all provincial health departments to determine how many new positions have been created over the past fifteen years and how many of these posts are necessary to the effective running of the health system.
• Conduct a survey of the qualifications and experience of all hospital CEOs and other managers. It is obvious from the replies that the DA has received, and from the reports of health professionals in the system, that many managers of hospitals were not employed for their technical abilities.

Statement issued by Mike Waters MP, Democratic Alliance spokesperson on health, May 24 2009

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