Government Plans to Examine NHI Draft

March 15 -With the government keen to see South Africans enjoying universal health coverage as soon as possible, the Health Minister, Aaron Motsoaledi told a news conference this week that he was pressing to advance the issue.

Motsoaledi said that he was trying to get fellow ministers sitting with him on an inter-ministerial committee to give their input on the next draft of the NHI.

He was prompting them to meet at "the first available date".

The Health Minister said that the first draft was submitted to the Cabinet last year.

"Cabinet gave input and asked very tough questions" said Motsoaledi. "It was referred back to the ministerial committee to incorporate inputs."

"They have done just that," he said. "Now the cabinet in that same meeting chose and inter-ministerial committee which must interrogate that document before it goes back to the cabinet."

The Health Minister said that he was seeking the first available date in order to get the committee together in order to "interrogate that document".

When asked about the costs of the National Health Insurance scheme, Motsoaledi said that these would only be known once the scheme was finalized.

Primary health care was one of the most important corner stones of the new scheme, said the health minister and any doctor wanting to join the scheme would need to recognize this.

"You are going to be immunizing people. You are going to be doing family planning. You are not going to wait for people here to come when they are sick and the bill is already high," he said. "You are going to start by doing prevention. So that what people will get if they go to a legal clinic and GP is the same thing.