If the National Health Insurance were to be forced through by the ANC, and brought into effect, only 24 out of 151 health facilities in the Northern Cape would be compliant with NHI standards. This makes the province the poorest performer in terms of NHI-readiness in the country.
This failure of healthcare infrastructure in provinces where the ANC governs is precisely the argument against the NHI. No new or extra NHI taxation, or forced nationalisation of private healthcare services will repair what is currently broken.
The province’s dire compliance rate of 15,89% was revealed in a parliamentary reply by the Minister of Health, Dr Aaron Motsoaledi, based on public healthcare facility inspections conducted by the Office of Health Standards Compliance.
The department’s failure to address ongoing deterioration of the provincial healthcare sector shows that it is not serious about improving healthcare in the province.
Kimberley’s Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe Hospital, the province’s only tertiary hospital, functions with skeleton staff and a handful of operational theatres, failing to keep up with increased referrals from the under-resourced and under-capacitated periphery.
This is exacerbated by obstructions such as lifts being rendered out of order, preventing bed-ridden patients from being ferried to theatres and recurring non-payment of the agency responsible for supplying nurses to theatre. The department also recently conceded to defaulting on its monthly dues of R90 million, owed to the National Health Laboratory Service (NHLS), to enable it to rather pay “other things”.
Regional and district hospitals are similarly hamstrung, functioning at a fraction of their full capacity while clinics are also unprepared to meet the demand for services. The AG recently flagged non-compliance to non-negotiable and vital elements in hospitals and clinics like the failure to keep facilities clean; the absence of hand hygiene facilities; the lack of stock control systems; the non-availability of certain medicines, medical supplies and functional equipment; safety hazards such as damaged ceilings; the lack of temperature control for safe storage of medication, and even the lack of electrical and compliance certificates, water and generators.
The DA has consistently warned that growing dysfunction within the provincial health sector has gone hand-in-hand with internal instability. This has been due to a cohort of acting managers being expected to stand in for high profile positions such as HODs and CFOs for an extended period of time, while the actual incumbents, who are implicated in wrongdoing, are protected from disciplinary action.
It is absurd to think that the health department, which cannot get its health infrastructure up to scratch or address clear signs of corruption, will be able to implement the NHI.
The DA will continue to oppose the NHI in its current form and hold the department accountable for its failure to provide lifesaving medical care to the 1,100 million people of the Northern Cape who remain dependent on the state for patient transport, assistive devices, surgery and medical care.