The prospect of NHI enough to make me ill to my stomach

However, I have been unable to ignore the rumblings of discontent emanating from the ranks of the moneyed classes as the government goes into labour ahead of delivering yet another multi-billion rand baby to suck greedily on the taxpayers’ already heavily milked hind tit.

Great spurting galactagogues! There are only two million of us left. How much more can we give?

I suppose it could be said that National Health Insurance seems like a good idea on paper. Then again, so did the Munich Agreement. But while Neville Chamberlain’s efforts to appease Hitler fell considerably short, our government’s plan has a remote chance of succeeding.

When I say succeeding, I mean that by 2025, we should be able to walk, crawl or be stretchered into a state hospital and be fairly certain that we will not be discharged in an even worse condition. Of course, much depends on how quickly we can learn Spanish. It wouldn’t be fair to expect the Cuban doctors to learn English. And if you’re some kind of squirrelly supremacist who insists on being treated by a white South African doctor, be prepared for a very long flight.

Through the imposition of new taxes, those of us upon whom providence smiles will help pay for the doomed to receive a reasonable level of medical care. This is naked yet tastefully lit socialism at its raunchy best and the mere thought of it leaves me breathing heavier than Gwede Mantashe on a treadmill.

The NHI carries with it the intoxicating fragrance of a faux velvet revolution. I foresee roads leading to the airports jammed with wild-eyed millionaires. Leafy suburbs set ablaze rather than have them fall into the grasping hands of the dispossessed. Mobs of shiftless malingerers fighting their way into private hospitals demanding new livers and a free bottle of wine. And why not? Who wouldn’t rather be in hospital? By then, nurses might even have been trained to use methods other than pinching and slapping as a means of communicating with patients.

I don’t mind coughing up a bit of money every month if it means avoiding having someone coughing up blood over me in the Spar, but I take a dim view of having to pay for people who do themselves a mischief through drinking, drugging or shagging. Damage by debauchery should be for your own account.

I am one of nine million people who belong to a medical aid scheme. During the twenty years I have been a member, I have given them close to a quarter of a million rand and have only claimed once. Not because I can never find a pen to fill in the paperwork, but because I’m on a plan that won’t pay for anything that doesn’t require me being wheeled into an operating theatre and eviscerated like a sheep at a Zulu wedding.

All I’ve done, really, is help make Adrian Gore even more wealthy. So it was with a smidgen of schadenfreude that I heard the news of Discovery’s shares falling faster than a hooker’s broeks at an EFF team-building weekend.

That’s not the only positive spin-off of all this talk of the NHI. For example, if you need to speak to a doctor but are reluctant to pay the extortionate consulting fee, you can go to any home affairs office in the country and there will be at least three standing in the passport queue. I can’t guarantee they will be in the mood to give you a diagnosis, but I’m sure they will be happy to offer advice if you start undressing.

Doctors in private practice are not only afraid they might have to charge less, but that they will also have to treat the poor. Illnesses suffered by the rich are more palatable than those suffered by the poor. A wealthy person, for example, might present with symptoms brought on by riding her horse bareback. The doctor will prescribe a cream for the rash and offer the number for his back-up phone. All doctors carry two phones. One for emergencies and the other for “emergencies”. Anyone who has ever dated or married a doctor will know what I’m talking about.

A poor person, on the other hand, might present with symptoms brought on by an axe in the head. Soon after admission, the patient will be visited by people who would like their axe back. Not ideal.

I imagine that the doctors who work in government hospitals aren’t overly distressed by the looming apocalypse of the NHI. They are the infantry of the medical profession and would like nothing more than to see the fighter pilots join them in the trenches.

Right now, the country is 24 000 doctors short. If the NHI means more doctors emigrating, the government is going to have to make it easier for the likes of you and me to replace them. It takes eight years to become a doctor and another six to specialise. Ain’t nobody got time for that. YouTube has tutorials for absolutely everything. For instance, in the last couple of minutes I have learnt how to perform open-heart surgery.

It can take up to six hours but longer if you break for Happy Hour. Let me run through it so you can start operating as soon as the NHI comes into effect. Put the patient to sleep. The cheapest way to do this is to read the government’s National Development Plan aloud. Use a steak knife to make a cut in the chest the length of a beer bottle. Expose the heart. If there is no heart, you are probably operating on my first ex-wife. Use a piece of hosepipe to make a new path around the blocked artery. Wire up the breastbone, stitch the cut with fishing line and go for a drink. Congratulations. You are now a heart surgeon.

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