No hospitals and only 40 out of 372 provincial clinics in Gauteng have so far been assessed for the proposed National Health Insurance (NHI).
This was revealed by Gauteng Health MEC Bandile Masuku in reply to questions by the DA’s shadow MEC for Health, Jack Bloom in the Gauteng Legislature.
According to Masuku, the 40 Primary Health Clinics were assessed by the Office of Health Standards Compliance (OHSC) in the week of 26 -30 August 2019, but “no facility has received the results from OHSC whether they have been accredited or not.”
It is not known when all Gauteng state health facilities will be accredited as “the accreditation mandate lies with OHSC and therefore they are the ones who provide dates of accreditation of the hospitals.”
This is yet another indication that Government is woefully unprepared to introduce its ambitious NHI in the near future, Bloom says.
“I doubt whether the OHSC has the resources to assess every single public health facility, and most of them are unlikely to get accreditation because of poor facilities and service.”
This follows the disclosure that not a single Gauteng health facility has been assessed as complying with the Occupational Health and Safety Act.
Bloom says if government cannot even meet quality requirements for its own health facilities, it is doubtful if they will be able to efficiently run a massive centralised NHI fund that will contract with all health providers.
According to Bloom, It would be far better to do achievable incremental improvements in both the public and private health sectors rather than a risky half-baked NHI plan that could make things worse.
Issued by Jack Bloom, DA Gauteng Shadow Health MEC