Media statement.
Thursday, 08 February 2024.
PRETORIA – As President Cyril Ramaphosa will be delivering his State of the Nation Address in Parliament this evening, the Democratic Nursing Organisation of South Africa (DENOSA) is hoping that the National Health Insurance (NHI) implementation plan will feature prominently in his address and that the hiring of critical staff in healthcare settings will be expedited, as 2026 as the year of NHI implementation is getting nearer.
The NHI remains the only sustainable route towards achieving equal access to quality healthcare services for all South Africans regardless of their socio-economic standing, as medical aid membership is becoming unaffordable. This is why DENOSA remains in full support of the NHI and believes the president must sign it into law as a matter of urgency.
Currently, the staff shortage in many facilities is leading to community frustration directed at the nurses as patients must queue for long hours in clinics and hospitals while healthcare workers face heavy workload and suffer burnout and depressions as a result. This will remain even in the NHI era if it is not dealt with now.
Cumulatively, the number of nurses that are produced by the country are far low compared to the growth in SA population. From 2013 to 2022, the total number of nurses on the South African Nursing Council’s register grew by only 4% (from 260 000 to 271 000) when the country’s population grew by 14% (from 52.9 million to 60.6 million) in the same period.
The country has produced about 1000 nurses on average per year between 2013 and 2022 for the country’s healthcare settings. Despite these low output numbers, there is still a cumulative number of about 20 000 nurses who were unemployed by 2023, meaning despite the average 1000 that would be produced, still not all of them would be absorbed into public healthcare facilities due to constant reduction of provincial health budgets.
From the onset, the NHI was to be ushered in into phases, with phase 1 comprising of paperwork and piloting, and phase 2 dealing with infrastructure, and phase 3 dealing with contracting and funding.
DENOSA would be most interested to hear of the government’s commitment to dealing with the infrastructural backlog on its system as well as the filling of critical vacant positions in the public healthcare service.
Because the infrastructural upgrades will not be done all at once, owing to budgetary constraints, the least we expect from the government is a clear approach, in the form of phases and timeframes, on how it plans to improve the infrastructure decay in many clinics and hospitals, which is an area that is key to the delivery of NHI services.
The need for infrastructure upgrade in many facilities was identified during the NHI piloting phase. Having healthcare infrastructure upgraded means more facilities will be accredited by the Office of Health Standards Compliance (OHSC) to provide NHI services. The longer it takes to upgrade many facilities would mean more communities are deprived of the NHI.
Both the infrastructure and human capital go together. As such, the recent government’s stated intention to cut costs in health as part of the government’s austerity measures go against the very spirit of the NHI as more patients and communities are deprived of access to quality healthcare services due to the shortage of staff.
End.
Issued by DENOSA.
For more information and interview requests, contact:
Sibongiseni Delihlazo, DENOSA Spokesperson.
Mobile: 072 584 4175.
Website: www.denosa.org.za
Facebook: DENOSA National Page
Twitter: @DENOSAORG
Instagram: Denosa_official