Comment extended: NHI Bill 29 November 2019

The Portfolio Committee on Health invites stakeholders and interested parties to submit written submissions on the National Health Insurance Bill [B11-2019]

The objective of the Bill is to achieve universal access to quality health care services in the Republic in accordance with section 27 of the Constitution; to establish a National Health Insurance Fund and to set out its powers, functions and governance structures; to provide a framework for the strategic purchasing of health care services by the Fund on behalf of users; to create mechanisms for the equitable, effective and efficient utilisation of the resources of the Fund to meet the health needs of the population; to preclude or limit undesirable, unethical and unlawful practices in relation to the Fund and its users; and to provide for matters connected herewith.

Comments must be submitted to Ms Vuyokazi Majalamba at [email protected]  by no later than Friday, 29 November 2019

Enquires can be directed to Ms Vuyokazi Majalamba at [email protected] and 021 403 3770 or 083 709 8522

You can track the processing of the Bill here

The Bill has been tagged/classified as a section 76 bill (ordinary bill affecting provinces). The process of classifying a Bill into one of four categories is called “tagging” and will determine the procedures the Bill must follow to become law. Bills are tagged by the Joint Tagging Mechanism (JTM), a Committee consisting of the Speaker and the Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly and the Chairperson and Permanent Deputy Chairperson of the National Council of Provinces. They are advised by the Parliamentary Law Adviser. The JTM decides on the classification of the Bill by consensus.

This Bill in substantial measure falls within the ambit of ‘‘health services’’ which is an area listed in Part A of Schedule 4, which makes provision for functional areas of concurrent national and provincial legislative competence.

In the Tongoane judgment the CC held that the tagging test focuses on all the provisions of the Bill in order to determine the extent to which they substantially affect the functional areas listed in Schedule 4 and not on whether any of its provisions are incidental to its substance

The CC further held that the test for tagging must be informed by its purpose. Tagging is not concerned with determining the sphere of government that has the competence to legislate on a matter. Nor is the purpose concerned with preventing interference in the legislative competence of another sphere of government. The process is concerned with the question of how the Bill should be considered by the provinces and in the National Council of Provinces, and how a Bill must be considered by the provincial legislatures depends on whether it affects the provinces. The more it affects the interest, concerns and capacities of the provinces, the more say the provinces should have on its content

NHI Bill being pushed for elections?

November 27, 2018

The Presidency and Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi seem intent on pushing the National Health Insurance (NHI) Bill through Parliament before next year’s election despite major unanswered questions.

The revised NHI Bill was presented to Cabinet’s social cluster sub-committee on 27 November 2018  before going to Cabinet, according to the health department.

However, the department failed to answer a number of other questions including why it was pushing the Bill through the legislative pipeline so fast – when even Health Director-General Precious Matsoso admitted last week that she had not seen the latest draft.

Civil society organisations have called on Cabinet to “send the NHI Bill back to the Department of Health and to require a proper and thorough consultation process and consideration of options available for improvement of access to and quality of health care services in the country”.

Professor Olive Shisana, the NHI advisor in the Presidency, is driving the NHI process and has allegedly changed a number of clauses, according to insiders.

The Bill has not been discussed in the National Health Council established by the National Health Act to advise the Minister of Health on policy and on proposed health legislation.

Acting Director General Ismail Momoniat wrote a letter to Shisana last week saying that Treasury could not support the latest version of the Bill as it had been “very substantively amended in October”, removing various agreements reached between the Ministers of Finance and Health.

Treasury was particularly concerned about amendments to the powers of provinces to deliver healthcare, inadequate costing of functions and the relegation of medical schemes to a complementary role which was “premature” and opened the Bill to legal challenges.

However, after the letter was leaked to the media, Treasury issued a statement describing it as “part of the vibrant and ongoing engagement to ensure policy coherence”.

“We have made substantial progress on key areas and have reached agreement on most of the major issues,” added Treasury. “Many of the issues raised by Treasury have been substantively addressed. We are confident that we will soon publish this important Bill for tabling in Parliament.”

But Treasury stressed that “the NHI must be adequately funded and successfully implemented while reducing the risks involved in the implementation of such a large and complex programme”.

Civil society organisations claim that the draft Bill was prepared even before a Presidential Summit that was supposedly called to consult various parties about the NHI.

“Public comments on the NHI over the past decade do not appear to have been taken into account, either between the Green and White Papers and the Bill or after the draft Bill was published for public comment,” according to a statement from Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), SECTION27, Rural Health Advocacy Project (RHAP), People’s Health Movement (PHM) and Lawyers for Human Rights (LHR).

“This makes a mockery of public consultation as required by the Constitution and opens the Bill up to future attack and delay on these grounds.”

The organisations also argue that the current Bill “risks damage to the functional elements of the health system – public and private” and that “government needs to focus on fixing the crises in private and public health rather than on hastily passing legislation that, in its current state, takes the country in the wrong direction”.

While the health department failed to respond to the civil society statement, last week Treasury said that “the implementation of the NHI and improvements in the quality of the health system go hand in hand and are therefore being addressed concurrently.” – Health-e News

Systemic reform necessary to cure SA health system

Friday, October 19, 2018

Deputy President David Mabuza says nothing short of a systemic overhaul is required to pull the country’s ailing health system out of the status quo.

“We all agree that our health system is in crisis and needs urgent attention,” Mabuza said on Friday at the inaugural Presidential Health Summit.

Delegates ranging from government officials, academics, labour to social activists are gathering in Ekurhuleni, Gauteng, over the next two days to thrash out pressing matters beleaguering the country’s strained health system.

Where does it hurt?

Before any steps can be taken, Deputy President Mabuza said, the country must collectively get to the root cause of the crisis.

“According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), one of the six building blocks of a healthy and resilient healthcare system is the health workforce or human resources for health.

“Over the past few months, there has been a serious outcry from all corners of our country about the shortages of the workforce in the public sector. Whereas the President has agreed to inject a certain number of the health workforce as part of his stimulus package, this is just but a temporary measure for immediate relief,” he said.

As part of the stimulus package, President Ramaphosa announced in September that Minister of Health and the National Health Council would immediately fill 2 200 critical medical posts, including nurses and interns. Funding would also be made available immediately to buy beds and linen.

On Friday, Mabuza said the summit had to come up with lasting solutions.

“The gross inequalities that have developed in the provision of human resources between the public and the private health sectors need to be faced head-on and resolved speedily,” he said.

The Deputy President said the country needed to urgently produce a national human resource operational plan that each level of health care can use in planning service provision.

The second major cause of problems in the provision of good quality healthcare, Mabuza said, is poor procurement or supply chain management systems that make it impossible to have adequate pharmaceuticals and other vital health commodities.

Although the country has essential medical equipment and medicine lists, which were accompanied by the delivery of chronic medicines distribution programme, challenges emanating from inadequate maintenance of equipment and stock-outs of medicines are still experienced.

“To ensure quality, safe and relevant technologies, we need to involve the end-users, primarily the health workers, in the procurement of equipment to ensure they can be used effectively and efficiently,” Mabuza said.

The Deputy President said the State needs to work with civil society groups to monitor the availability of medicines and other commodities in the healthcare system.

“The public needs to keep us on our toes to ensure that the population gets what is due to them.”

Health services provision is another area that requires urgent attention, Mabuza said, as this would ensure that every South African has access to care that is affordable.

“It must also be comprehensive and include preventive, curative, palliative, rehabilitative and health promotion services. At the moment, the primary health care component of our healthcare system is very weak and is found wanting.

“Our healthcare system is by and large curative, hospicentric and unable to provide comprehensive healthcare.”

Mabuza conceded that public facilities were congested, inappropriately staffed and plagued by long queues of patients, among them too many repeat visits.

NHI

With regards to the National Health Insurance (NHI) scheme, which is set to be phased in from 2019, the Deputy President said health facilities had to meet the set standards in order to be accredited.

Government is in the process of establishing learning centres to implement these standards.

“At facility level, we need to ensure that agreed quality standards are met in the provision of health care services. This must be supported by the recruitment and deployment of appropriately skilled personnel to ensure quality service delivery,” he said.

There is an urgent need to prioritise the development of new infrastructure in previously underserviced areas, and ensure that existing infrastructure is properly maintained to meet the required standards.

“The drastic shortage of appropriate infrastructure means that people with a mental health condition are often hospitalised in non-mental patient wards, and male and female patients are hospitalised in the same ward,” Mabuza lamented.

Funding and meeting infrastructure needs

In response to these challenges, the Deputy President said government must develop a consistent 10-year infrastructure plan, using identified and ring-fenced infrastructure resources that might benefit from the President Cyril Ramaphosa’s R400 billion infrastructure stimulus package.

“Our response to the health sector challenges will be incomplete if this summit does not provide targeted solutions to inadequate health systems financing and management,” he said.

The Deputy President said the financing of South Africa’s healthcare was inequitable across the board.

The private sector, he said, uses a higher proportion of the GDP but only serves only 16% of the population, when the public sector uses a lower proportion of the GDP, while it services 84% of South Africans.

“These inequities need to be identified and corrected in budget allocations.”

In an effort to address some of the challenges, the Office of the President will be re-costing health system funding “to provide more realistic figures on the cost of this health system and estimate a better model of allocation depending on the burden of disease per district”.

“The challenges in healthcare are also found in the private sector, although they vary in nature,” said Mabuza.

The private sector provision costs are unacceptably high and affordable only to a few, as proved by the Health Market Inquiry headed by former Chief Justice Sandile Ngcobo.

Mabuza bemoaned how most medical schemes were unsustainable, as they had high premiums that often increase faster than inflation.

“Medical scheme benefits are often exhausted before year-end, which forces patients to have no cover and many end up using the public health sector.”

He said challenges in both the public and private health sectors require a new approach to serve all South Africans.

“We need a publicly financed health system where services are provided by both the public and private facilities delivered according to improved standards of care. An integrated unitary health system under NHI does not negate the existence of medical schemes for those who desire additional care that complements services provided under NHI.”

He urged both the public and private arms of the sector to address the challenges in commissions over the next two days.

“We must work on a system based on solidarity to give all of our people the best that we can offer as a nation. It is within our power to make quality health care accessible to all.

“As we enhance collaboration in our entire health system, we need to build coordinated, integrated and shared health information systems.”

Checka Impilo

Mabuza used the summit to launch Checka Impilo, a national wellness campaign that focuses on testing and treating people who have HIV, TB, sexually transmitted infections and non-communicable diseases (NCDs) such as diabetes and hypertension.

The campaign will focus on the provision of comprehensive health and wellness services targeted at men, adolescent girls and young women, as well as key and vulnerable population groups.

The success of the campaign, Mabuza said, depends on coordinated collaboration among all social partners in respect to planning, implementation and monitoring.

Checka Impilo is a call to action for South Africans to move from a curative response to health to preventative approaches and the adoption of healthy lifestyles.

The campaign will focus on increased information, education and communication activities, promotion of HIV testing, widespread distribution of condoms, and provision of pre- and post-exposure prophylaxis against HIV.

“All of us must, therefore, go out in great numbers to test for HIV and screen for STIs, TB and NCDs such as diabetes and hypertension.

“Within 24 months of this campaign, we must have found and put two million more people on ARVs. We must also have found and put at least 80 000 more people with TB on anti-TB treatment. We must also have identified thousands more with diabetes, high blood pressure and cancer, and put them on treatment,” Mabuza said. – SAnews.gov.za

#EnoughNCDs campaign targeting the UN High-Level Meeting on NCDs 2018

In September 2018 the United Nations High-Level Meeting  on NCDs (UN HLM NCDs) takes place. People around the world are joining together to say: “We have had #EnoughNCDs and action is needed. Now!”

The SANCDA joins the global campaign convened by NCD Alliance together with our global network of people and organizations. We demand that our government prioritize NCDs as they have promised to do since 2011. So we are calling for governments to act going into the UN HLM NCDs.
This is what we are asking for as South Africans:

1. Put people first – you and me who live every day with NCDs.
2. Boost NCD investment so that empty promises stop and there is NCDs action.
3. Step up action on childhood obesity but don’t forget to beat childhood malnutrition in all of its forms.
4. Adopt smart fiscal policies that promote health and then put some money into NCDs prevention and treatment.
5. Save lives through equitable access to NCDs treatment through universal health coverage (NHI).
6. Improve government accountability to the people for progress, results and resources.

Please join us! You can show your support  for the cause by championing a leader or personality who will support the fight against NCDs. Please contact us with your ideas and suggestions. We would love to hear from you. requests. For further information please checkin the  back with the SANCDA  for more on the movement and campaign as it progresses.

 

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