Durban — The Hospital Association of South Africa (Hasa) said it was disappointed that the National Health Insurance Bill had been approved by the Health Portfolio Committee without considering the recommendations raised during public hearings.
Hasa said it had also noted the media statements regarding the concerns about the bill in its current form from two representative organisations of doctors, the South African Medical Association and the South African Private Practitioners’ Forum.
In a statement, Hasa said it believed that approving the bill without substantive consideration of the many valid and significant recommendations and contributions made by many participants during the Parliamentary hearing was deeply regrettable, and was a missed opportunity by the committee.
“As the hearings demonstrated, there is broad support for universal access to quality health care. There is a willingness to engage with the government to collectively craft the best possible legislation, so to summarily ignore the voices of many people who raised their concerns regarding governance structures and operational efficiency concerns is short-sighted and highly unwise.”
Hasa further said the concentration of risk in a single-payer system in an unstable economy with endemic corruption was a bad idea.
Furthermore, Hasa said the passing of such vast, complicated, risky, and consequential legislation required confidence, trust, and collaboration among all stakeholders, and that the approach taken undermined confidence and posed a threat to trust.
Hasa urged the National Assembly and the National Council of Provinces in their deliberations on the bill to insist on a multi-payer model to mitigate against the concentration of risk and to pay attention to the nation’s concerns that the proposed NHI was susceptible to theft and corruption.
The South African Medical Association (Sama) said while it supported some provisions of the NHI, others lacked essential detail.
Sama president Dr Mvuyisi Mzukwa said they were concerned about the current significant quality deficits in the public sector and that these would simply be incorporated into the new NHI if significant strides in addressing these first were not made.
“Sama remains engaged in multiple projects to improve the quality of health care delivery, but these appear to be divorced from the need for an NHI,” said Mzukwa.
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