Tackle ailing health sector before starting new NHI

SA’s national department of health is seriously sick when workers refuse to go to their offices because, they claim, the building is in such a bad state of disrepair it endangers their lives.

Yet, Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi claims the safety issues at the Civitas building in Pretoria have been exaggerated. He says he and his senior managers report to work every day – his office is on the 28th floor – and that while there are “problems” with the building these “can be corrected”.

That may be so, minister, but we believe your people have a point. Civitas has been rated as only 20% compliant with the stipulations of the Occupational Health and Safety Act. That is even lower than the score of the Bank of Lisbon building in Johannesburg – which houses provincial government departments. And that latter building caught fire earlier this month, causing the deaths of three firefighters.

While the habitability of the building is the responsibility of the department of public works (which appears to be sleeping on the job), Motsoaledi has been aware of this problem for months and cannot try – as he has done – to blame dissatisfaction among workers on unionist agitation and intimidation.

In the meantime, the work at the national department of health has been seriously compromised. Permits are not being granted for anything – from drugs to new clinics. In the end, it is ordinary South Africans who are suffering.

But what is most worrying about this, is that this is the place from where Motsoaledi and his bureaucracts are planning to implement the National Health Insurance (NHI) project, which has attracted widespread criticism from the private health sector.

If the minister is incapable of promoting good health for his own workers, what chance do the rest of us have?

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