Johannesburg - Health workers' unions have said that yesterday’s Budget speech by Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana was underwhelming when looking at issues that are affecting their sector.
Democratic Nursing Organisation of South Africa spokesperson Sibongiseni Delihlazo told The Star that the budget did not say anything on the National Health Insurance (NHI), which is scheduled to be implemented in 2026.
"The NHI is really going to intervene in a number of areas for our health care system, which is really faced with many challenges as a result of underfunding in the main."
"It is quite disappointing that there was nothing on the NHI, and that is a vote of no confidence in this grand plan that this country has adopted, and it may also be viewed as a lack of confidence by the current government or administration towards this plan," said Delihlazo.
He expressed his disappointment and said there should have been a move to put in place budgets that would drive the plan from its inception until it carries the momentum of not only assisting health care workers but also patients.
Delihlazo also pointed out that there was hope that some of the R254 billion that is being set aside for clearing the debt for Eskom would somewhat enable Eskom to do away with load shedding, and if that were the case, pressure would be taken off facilities that are now having to take money meant for operational activities and put it towards buying fuel for generators, which runs into the millions.
Young Nurses Indaba Trade Union general secretary Lerato Mthunzi also said that funding for additional staff to compensate for the shortage of health care workers was rather vague in the speech.
She said it was unclear how this would be done and if it will cover all the provinces; it's also not clear about the current backlog that the sector is experiencing.
"We also have contract workers from the Covid pandemic that have not yet been made permanent in the system. We have been screaming for their absorption, so it's not yet clear how."
"We wanted to know more about the funded post from the National Treasury on health, so that we are aware of how we are going to be dealing with the issue of the patient-to-health care worker ratio and the issue of the shortage we are really at pains to resolve," she said.
On the national crisis of load shedding, Mthunzi said her organisation would like the government to be more transparent and specific about the mortality rate of the people in the country who are dying because of load shedding as when there are blackouts, there are few back-up contingencies in most facilities.
"I don’t think the current Budget is looking specifically on health, which is a matter of saving people’s lives," she said.
Mthunzi also said that not much had been said about disaster management responses, given incidents such as the KwaZulu-Natal floods and the recent gas tanker explosions in Gauteng.
She said she was worried about the ability of essential workers such as EMS to respond when such emergencies occur and that there wasn’t any mention of a budget for these emergency health care workers.
The Star