Budget: Healthcare spending to increase to R187.5bn

Government funds disbursed to sharply reduce the country’s disease burden and improve the quality of healthcare will grow by 8% from R171 billion in 2016/17 to R187.5 billion in 2017/20.

The increase is mainly driven by government’s roll-out of antiretrovials for people with HIV/Aids, which now affects 3.5 million people.

According to the budget, since September 2016, government has been implementing a universal test-and-treat policy, meaning all those diagnosed with HIV can get started on life-prolonging treatment.

To sustain this, R1 billion has been earmarked for a comprehensive plan of action for HIV, Aids and TB conditional grants by 2019/20.

Despite an increase, the budget is under pressure, as personnel costs and spending on antiretrovirals continues to increase while the currency depreciates.

To counter this, government has set to limit the number of staff, improve efficiencies in buying medicine and delaying any large infrastructure programmes.

Of the R187.5bn, district health services will get R84 billion; central hospital services R35.9 billion; provincial hospitals R32 billion; facilities management and maintenance has been allocated R10 billion and other health-related services will receive R26 billion.