Striving for NHI success: SA may swallow UK’s bitter pill

As it marks 75 years of existence, Britain’s free National Health Service (NHS) may be beset with problems but is still held in high regard by many Britons, with levels of support higher than for the royal family or any other British institution.

Will South Africa, though, ever be able to report the same thing about our controversial, about-to-be-implemented National Health Insurance (NHI)?

Our proposed scheme is said to be modelled on that of the NHS, which was founded as the Western world’s first universal, free healthcare system.

Since 1948, though, most European countries have instituted similar systems – or at least heavily subsidised health sectors – which have largely taken the financial stress out of medical issues for most of their populations.

The NHS is funded by taxpayers’ money and guarantees free healthcare for all.

Despite this, though, there is still a thriving private medical sector, as well as private health insurance (like our medical aids) in the UK.

The problem is that government funding has, over the years, not been able to keep up with increasing demand for services and can’t provide its medical professionals with inflation-related salary increases.

Both these issues have now caused a crisis at the NHS, with long waiting times for elective surgeries and even ordinary doctor’s appointments.

This should, at the very least, give our government pause for thought.

The NHS and other state free medical programmes are all being implemented in countries which are vastly wealthier than we are as a developing nation.

Our health sector is already burdened through a constitutional obligation to provide care to large numbers of illegal migrants and our tax base is smaller.

As we have seen repeatedly, most areas touched by our government and civil service turn to rubbish, so how will we ever produce anything like Britain’s NHS?