The National Health Insurance Bill: Responses and options for the Portfolio Committee on Health

Abstract

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South African healthcare reforms towards universal healthcare – where to next?

“…In previous work, it became clear that the public sector largely operates according to defined clinical protocols, whereas private sector practices showed much more variation, with influences on practice from professional organisations, clinical networks and international practice. [36] Adopting a set of agreed common protocols and clinical guidelines based on SA-specific evidence of efficacy and costeffectiveness would go some way to standardising quality of care as well as providing a common and recognised medicolegal baseline for clinical practice. [37] Learning from health system reform experience within the country and in other countries, particularly low-and middleincome countries: we have an existing health system in which some elements and innovations are working very well, and lessons from this success could be applied to other focus areas for improvement or rolled out across more parts of the country.…”

The state of kidney replacement therapy in Eastern Cape Province, South Africa: A call to action

“…Due consideration should also be given to involving the private sector in partnerships to ramp up service provision progressively, as recently noted by the National Department of Health in view of experience with the COVID pandemic. [36] The reasons for the overall disparate healthcare and KRT in the Eastern Cape are in part historical, resulting from the lack of provision of services and infrastructure in rural provinces during the apartheid era. [37] Other potential barriers to increasing KRT in the province are geographical distance from the KRT services, inadequate resource allocation, loss of skills to migration, stigmatisation regarding HIV or inadequate access to its treatment, inadequate training, lack of community education, lack of transparency, religious and cultural beliefs, and lack of government will.…”

Healthcare Delivery

“…The approach taken by the PCH will have a profound impact not only on SA's future health system but also on the broader trajectory of social, societal and economic wellbeing. [3] Declaration. None.…”

“…The meeting summaries and the presentations and submissions of 117 respondents available on the PMG website were captured into a database and analysed. The database was structured to capture information on the data capture process (data capturer, checker and reviewer), respondent information (organisation, date presented), and inputs provided by theme (support for National Health Insurance (NHI), concerns around corruption, governance and the Minister of Health (MoH), constitutional infringements, funding, access and benefits).To make the analysis publicly available as soon as possible, an editorial [3] and an 'In Practice' article [4] were published in the South African Medical Journal (SAMJ) and a series of op-eds, each covering a key theme, were published in partnership with the Daily Maverick. [5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12] These earlier articles cover the inputs in detail, while this article provides an overview of the entire series.…”

“…To make the analysis publicly available as soon as possible, an editorial [3] and an 'In Practice' article [4] were published in the South African Medical Journal (SAMJ) and a series of op-eds, each covering a key theme, were published in partnership with the Daily Maverick. [5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12] These earlier articles cover the inputs in detail, while this article provides an overview of the entire series.…”