National Death Insurance: Healthcare in ICU, says new report
Why should ANYONE in South Africa put their faith in anything the government does? The government’s vaunted National Health Insurance (NHI) is really National Death Insurance!
After all, when you look at the government’s disgraceful conduct over the last 24 years nothing works anymore. Our schools and universities are burning down. There is internal financial mismanagement with South African Airways. Gauteng’s e-tolls are an embarrassing fiasco.
Add to that the state-owned power utility, Eskom – in financial crisis and a risk to the South Africa’s economy. Look at the South African police. They can’t control crime because they themselves are constantly rocked by corruption within their ranks. Look at the Vaal Dam full of pollution and raw sewage.
SARS too has suffered poor state governance and rampant corruption and the cash-strapped SABC’s fraud and corruption has seen them in court. So why should we for one minute think that the NHI is going to work?Isn’t it just National Death Insurance?
Just Another Failure Waiting to Happen
The idea of National Health Insurance is to ensure that every South African has access to decent healthcare. There’s nothing wrong with that. But can the government really do this considering the record of disasters that currently reign in South Africa?
South Africans won’t have much say and many options regarding the NHI. And every South African will have to belong to it. Whether you pay a massive premium each month to a medical aid plan, you’ll still have to contribute to NHI too. Evidently the government will collect the health funds and then disburse them. With fraud and corruption rife, there’s no knowing whose pockets this money will go.
A report from the IRR, titled South Africa’s National Death Insurance Scheme, reveals to us the extend of the crisis in South Africa’s public health system. The report lays bare the appalling corruption in the sector as it is.
Life is Cheap in South Africa
Much of the report is a collation of many media reports on mismanagement in the public health sector. The Life Esidimeni tragedy was one such tragic example. The care or rather the non-care that some people receive has left them seriously injured or dead.
Stories are rife of botched births, the wrong body parts being operated on, the wrong amputations and babies being left brain dead because of the lethargic response of nurses who are there to collect a salary and nothing else. Do your research and of the nearly 700 hospitals and clinics inspected, only 5 complied with the standards set out by the Department of Health.
National Death Insurance
The truth is – the NHI pilot projects have already failed, which means that if a pilot project is unsuccessful, it is likely to fail nationally too.
Some parties in South Africa simply believe that the creation of a single National Health Insurance Fund is essentially the creation of another state-owned entity which is concerning when you look at the government’s pathetic performance in managing state owned entities.
Health minister Dr Aaron Motsoaledi says the National Health Insurance (NHI) Bill is going to pave the way for more access to good medical healthcare. Many people believe that with NHI, good healthcare as we once knew it is going to be wheeled into the operating theatre and undergo surgery for which it won’t recover.
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All info was correct at time of publishing