The Western Cape Government (WCG) has urged President Cyril Ramaphosa not to sign the National Health Insurance (NHI) Bill into law.
Also read: President Cyril Ramaphosa to sign National Health Insurance Bill into law
The Presidency announced on Monday that he will sign the NHI Bill into law today at 2pm.
PRESIDENT RAMAPHOSA TO PUBLICLY SIGN NATIONAL HEALTH INSURANCE BILL INTO LAW
President @CyrilRamaphosa will on Wednesday, 15 May 2024, publicly sign into law the National Health Insurance Bill which directs the transformation of the South Africa’s health care system to achieve…
— The Presidency 🇿🇦 (@PresidencyZA) May 13, 2024
‘The Western Cape Government (WCG) remains deeply concerned with the Bill in its current form. It requires substantial amendments,’ said Western Cape Premier Alan Winde.
‘We believe that the Bill as it stands currently is unconstitutional and will prove to be unaffordable and impractical. We firmly believe that it will not achieve its purpose of Universal Health Coverage (UHC), which our citizens deserve.’
‘I appeal to the President to refer the Bill back to Parliament for reconsideration, in terms of Section 79 of the Constitution.’
According to Section 27(2) of the Constitution, the State must take ‘reasonable legislative and other measures, within its available resources, to achieve the progressive realisation of the right of access to healthcare services.’
Winde noted that it does not appear that the national government did this.
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Winde and Professor Nomafrench Mbombo, the minister of health and wellness in the province, wrote to the president to raise their concerns on 8 December 2023 and again on 24 January 2024.
However, no response has been received.
‘With the NHI Bill signalling the most significant change to the healthcare system since the promulgation of the National Health Act, it is crucial that a piece of legislation of this nature reflects all stakeholders’ inputs and creates a system that is unified and strategically aligned,’ Mbombo said in a statement.
‘Unfortunately, this is not the case with the NHI in its current form. For us to truly achieve UHC, we do believe that the current health system needs to be completely overhauled as we are currently trying to run an imperfect system perfectly.’
‘However, it requires that we create a system where all stakeholders work together.’
The WCG says provincial health departments have to contend with ‘immense fiscal constraints caused in large part by the budget cuts’ that were made due to the public sector wage increase.
‘It is, therefore, incomprehensible how the national government intends [to fund] this unaffordable piece of legislation,’ it said.
It further stated that the national government will have to draft and implement various pieces of legislation and policies to implement the NHI and ensure that the framework, as provided in the Bill, is correct and does not contain policy gaps that could create uncertainty.
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Picture: Brenton Geach / Gallo Images