Another organisation representing the country’s medical professionals has said it will not sign the second Presidential Health Compact because the document is “nothing more than an attempt to lock in support” for National Health Insurance (NHI).
The South African Health Professionals Collaboration (SAHPC) is a group of nine medical, dental, and allied healthcare practitioners’ associations that represent more than 25 000 private and public-sector healthcare professionals.
The SAHPC’s spokesperson, Dr Simon Strachan, said the organisation believes reforms are necessary to address the challenges in the country’s healthcare system. However, the way the health compact has been written was fundamentally biased towards solidifying support for the NHI Act as the only solution to achieving universal health coverage, to which the SAHPC is not opposed.
“The compact heavily focuses on the NHI, presenting it as the only viable option for the country, which we don’t accept. Health professionals, including general practitioners, specialists, dentists, and allied workers are the cornerstone of health provision in this country,” Strachan said in a statement on Thursday.
“Our primary concern is and always will be the well-being of patients. We do not believe that the NHI is a viable or workable model for achieving universal health coverage. Our numerous proposals and concerns have not been acknowledged.
“What is needed is urgent formal engagement with the President on the NHI and ways of achieving universal health coverage to ensure health reform is fit for purpose and truly benefits patients, the economy, and the country. It is important that health reforms are developed in partnership with all those mandated to deliver this critical service,” he said.
In an interview with Jeremy Maggs on Friday, Strachan said NHI never formed a significant part of the discussions during the 2013 and 2019 Presidential Health Summits, in which the SAHPC participated. The health that has been presented to the organisation to ratify and sign does not accurately reflect the discussions that took place during those summits.
Strachan said two members of the SAHPC are preparing court papers against the NHI Act that will be lodged within the next few weeks.
One of the nine organisations that is part of the SAHPC, the South African Medical Association, said last week it will not sign the compact because it endorses the NHI Act.
Read: Organisations won’t sign Presidential Health Compact because it endorses NHI Act
The other organisations that fall under the SAHPC are the South African Private Practitioners Forum, the Federation of South African Surgeons, the South African Dental Association, the South African Society of Anaesthesiologists, the Unity Forum of Family Practitioners, the South African Orthopaedic Association, the South African Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, and the Radiological Society of South Africa.
Opposition to signing the health compact has come from organised business as represented by Business Unity South Africa, which is the country’s largest federation of business organisations in terms of its members’ contribution to GDP and employment.
The compact was scheduled to be signed at the Union Buildings on Thursday, but the Presidency issued an alert on Wednesday saying the signing ceremony was postponed by a week to 22 August. The President’s spokesperson, Vincent Magwenya, said this was because of changes in the diary that had to be accommodated” and not because of the opposition to NHI.
