Health union wants govt to exclude private sector from NHI

THE HEALTH and Allied Workers Indaba Trade Union (HAITU) has called for the Minister of Health, Dr Aaron Motsoaledi, to exclude the private health-care sector from its National Health Insurance (NHI) plan.

The union said the private sector was motivated by the need to accumulate profit rather than the interests of South African citizens in dire need of universal health care.

The union’s general secretary, Lerato Mthunzi, was reacting to Motsoaledi’s remarks during the tabling of the budget speech for the Health Department, about forging ahead with implementing the NHI in phases.

“We will have to start implementing NHI in phases, as we are already in phase 2. The rest of the building blocks of health will easily fall into place,” Motsoaledi said.

He further announced that the department had been allocated R62,218,899, a 3.5% increase from the previous year’s R60.1 billion.

Mthunzi, said, “We welcome the fact that the minister’s focus is to implement the National Health Insurance, because, as a union, we firmly believe in ending the gross inequality that exists in the health-care sector in our country.”

“HAITU’s view is that the roll-out of the NHI must be intentional. We share the concerns of the minister of the parasitic nature of privately-owned medical aids and how the private sector has milked state coffers for the benefit of a tiny (portion of the) population at the expense of the majority of people.”

The union’s endorsement of the NHI comes amidst opposition from some private health-care institutions, organisations and political parties to President Cyril Ramaphosa signing of the NHI bill into law.

Netcare warned that the government’s decision to ignore private sector input on the NHI Act had set the grounds for legal confrontation that could have been avoided.

But Mthunzi said that the union was against the idea of offering the poor low-cost benefit options through private medical aid because it did not solve the problem of unequal access to health care.

“We reject the notion that wealthy people have richer benefits than the poor. HAITU calls on the minister to go as far as possible in removing the private sector from the provision of health care in this country, because corporates are not motivated by the Constitution, which has declared that everyone has the right to access health care; they are motivated by selfishness, greed and profits,” she said.