ANC on foreigner blame trail wants to ram through NHI Bill

Against a growing campaign to blame foreign nationals for depleting public health services, and with ANC MPs yesterday pulling all stops out for a speedy passage of the National Health Insurance (NHI) Bill, respected scientist Professor Shabir Madhi has blamed mismanagement, poor governance and corruption for the messy state of public healthcare.

Madhi, executive director of the Vaccines and Infectious Diseases Analytics research unit at Wits University, said the NHI was “an aspiration, which is being sold as the saviour to the self-inflicted healthcare crisis, caused by government mismanagement and poor governance and corruption in the health system”.

He was commenting amid heated discussions in the parliamentary health portfolio committee over the NHI Bill, with opposition party MPs warning the ANC against rushing for the promulgation of the Bill into law, given current flaws in the system – one of them being the country’s uncoordinated health information system.

Madhi said South Africa already had “the highest per capita allocation of funding to healthcare than anywhere else on the continent, yet has poorer indicators than many other African countries”.

He said: “For all intent, SA has as close as you can get to the National Health Service in UK, with funding for health provision to 80% of the population, largely provided by government though taxes.

“The NHI Bill is not meant to be leading to any meaningful change and improvement of access to quality healthcare – an issue separate to that of migrant access to healthcare.

“The state we are in is not due to overwhelming of health services by foreign nationals, but because of mismanagement, poor governance and corruption in all provinces, except in the Western Cape.

“Access to healthcare for foreigners – be it under the current model or the NHI – requires adequate management structures and competency to implement policies that have existed to cover such.”

In discussing clause-byclause provisions of the Bill, opposition MPs lashed out at the ANC for being hasty in pushing its passage – pointing to the uncoordinated national health information system.

Said ANC MP Nhlanhla Xaba: “We need to move forward. If a member is unhappy, he knows what to do.” In concurring with Xaba, another ANC MP Tshilidzi Munyai, said the party supported the clause on the national health information system.

“For the NHI to be successfully implemented in a sustainable manner, an information system that can generate a valid and reliable system – in the correct format of planning and decision-making at all levels of management – is required,” said Munyai.

“Furthermore, a country has to be able to access readily available data and information for informed decision-making and planning, allocation and monitoring. “We demonstrated this during the management of Covid,” he added.

Among opposition MPs expressing dissatisfaction on the NHI Bill parliamentary process were DA’s Evelyn Wilson and Haseena Ismail.

Said Wilson: “Section 74 of the National Health Act provides for a coordinated implementation of the health information systems at national, provincial and local levels, but this is not happening in the current environment.

“Many hospitals do not have access to internet, phones or working computers. “The NHI cannot be introduced until weaknesses in the system are corrected.”

Ismail said she was “worried about this clause, because we have a problem with data on the system”.

“People struggle to get information from clinics in order to apply for birth certificates. “Healthcare workers have limited access to computers in rural areas,” she warned.

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