Party leader Mmusi Maimane says the NHI Bill won’t work in SA. Picture: Timothy Bernard/Independent Newspapers
Bosa leader Mmusi Maimane has called on President Cyril Ramaphosa and his Cabinet to cancel their medical aids and use public health care with immediate effect.
Maimane said there must be a ban on senior officials and ministers using private health care or flying abroad to seek medical assistance.
“It is often said your health is your worth. The National Health Insurance, as envisaged by the ANC, is going to be devastating for this country. We will have a profound skills flight from this country and, ultimately, it will drain the fiscus.
“This is a R500 billion investment that needs to go with a government that is already heavily indebted to, incapable of managing financial resources and, ultimately, has allowed the public health-care sector to collapse,” the Bosa leader said.
Maimane said the health-care system collapsed because of poor leadership in multiple places.
He assured South Africans that with the implementation of the NHI, people would never get the best health care that Ramaphosa was promising.
“Ultimately, when health-care workers leave, you will end up with health care being outsourced elsewhere. Look at countries such as Zimbabwe and more. Their leaders could not even stay in their country for (their health issue) … and they end up dying elsewhere.”
Maimane said that as a country, people needed to be intentional about the bill, adding that they must reject it with everything they had.
He said Bosa had always maintained that a dual system worked effectively, adding that one of the key interventions that could be put on the table was to ensure that it was possible for competent and capable leadership to be appointed at hospitals.
Allied Workers Indaba Trade Union (president Rich Sicina said the sudden hasty decision by government to sign the NHI Bill into law was just an electioneering ploy.
Sicina said it was obvious that the bill would fail.
"We are saying: let the #NHIBill come. Let’s be clear, it will collapse, and when it does, let it fail for all of us in South Africa.“
He said South Africans could no longer be fooled by the government party’s theatrics.
According to the Presidency, the signing of the bill into law would transform South Africa’s health-care system and ensure universal coverage for health services.
Through that, the country would overcome critical socio-economic imbalances and inequities of the past, the Presidency said.
The NHI Bil, was passed by the National Assembly and the National Council of Provinces last year.
The bill sought to provide free health care at the point of care for all South Africans, whether in public or private health facilities.
The Star
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