After an inspection of public healthcare facilities, the Northern Cape was found to be the worst performing province to meet the necessary standards to be considered ready for the National Health Insurance (NHI).
In this inspection by the Office of Health Standards Compliance (OHSC), more than 60,35% of public healthcare facilities in South Africa were found not ready for the NHI.
Of the 3 093 public healthcare facilities, only 1 226 or 39,65% were found to be NHI-ready.
The rest of the 1 866 facilities will need focus, skills and funding to get to the required levels.
The Northern Cape received an average compliance rate of 15,89%.
Limpopo (17,88%), the Free State (20,18%), and the Eastern Cape (26,74) are not far behind.
This is according to Dr. Aaron Motsoaledi, minister of health, in a recent written response to a RISE Mzansi parliamentary question.
The press release with the response received by the minister was issued on 19 November by RISE Mzansi.
“The aforementioned figures should concern all of us, given that the majority of South Africans rely on the public healthcare facilities, which are evidently not up to the regulated standards; moreover, healthcare practitioners are not working in environments conducive to providing quality healthcare,” the statement of RISE Mzansi reads.
It stated that a quality and accessible healthcare system cannot be built if underfunding, corruption, loss of skills to the private sector and other countries, management and leadership of healthcare facilities, as well as the working conditions of healthcare practitioners, are not addressed.
In his reaction Izak Fritz, MPL and the DA’s provincial spokesperson on health, said the Northern Cape Department of Health’s failure to address ongoing deterioration of the provincial healthcare sector showed that it was 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.
“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,” Fritz said, remarking it is absurd to think that this health department will be able to implement the NHI.
