AROUND 82 out of every 100 South Africans are largely dependent on public healthcare. That’s according to the Stats SA General Household Survey. What’s more they found that only 17 in every 100 South Africans have medical insurance, the essential key that opens the door to private health-care.
The survey revealed that those who have medical aid can consider themselves lucky. As many as 45 million, or 82 out of every 100 South Africans fall outside the medical aid net, and as a result are largely dependent on public health-care.
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The report release this week said: “The lack of medical cover is expressed in the decisions that families make because of financial constraints. Only a quarter of households in South Africa still opt to go to a private institution if their family member is ill. It’s no wonder then that health-care is a high priority for public-sector spending.
“For every rand that the South African government spent in 2014/15, 11 cents went to health-care, totalling R157 billion. This makes health-care the fourth largest item of government expenditure, superseded by education (19 cents), social protection (13 cents), and executive and legislative organs (13 cents),” Stats SA said in the report.
The bulk which amounts to 86 per cent, was spent by provincial government, which is tasked to manage the nation’s public health-care system, comprising 422 hospitals and 3 841 clinics and health centres.
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Updated information in Stats SA’s latest financial statistics of provincial government sets the health-care bill for provincial government at R150 billion for 2015/16. This translates to R3 332 spent per person for the 45 million who do not have medical cover.
