HEALTH COMPACT: PRESIDENT SPELLS OUT ROLE FOR NON-SIGNATORIES

HEALTH COMPACT: PRESIDENT SPELLS OUT ROLE FOR NON-SIGNATORIES

• 15 September 2024
• Health & Safety
• SA Legal Academy

President Cyril Ramaphosa has clarified the role of non-signatories to the second health compact – a five-year plan that, among other things, ‘aims to ensure that … National Health Insurance (NHI) is implemented affordably, deriving value for money and also eliminating corruption’. In his view, ‘these are the objectives … all stakeholders can support and work towards’.

In a written reply to questions from NCOP representative for the DA in Limpopo Province, Nicolaas Pienaar, the President said there is ‘good reason’ for stakeholders who ‘chose not to sign … the compact’ nevertheless to ‘be involved in the work needed to achieve … (its) aims’. This is noting the importance of using private sector ‘capabilities’ to ‘enable equitable access to quality services for all citizens’.

With an effectively implemented NHI system in mind, the aims of the compact include:

• building ‘a capable, compassionate, fit-for-purpose workforce in the health sector’
• strengthening the ‘local manufacturing of health products’
• ensuring that ‘health infrastructure meets the necessary quality standards’, and
• facilitating ‘adequate community engagement and inclusivity’ across the health sector so that ‘inferior health care services’ are reported and addressed.

The President's reply tends to suggest that a ‘joint monitoring and evaluation steering committee’ established to oversee the compact’s implementation is open to ‘continuous engagement’ with all key stakeholders – possibly including non-signatories, although this is not clear. Nevertheless, references to opportunities for stakeholders to ‘find each other’ and agree on ‘solutions to some of the problems that still exist’ tend to point to plans for broader participation in the five-year compact implementation process.

In the President’s view, ‘by working together on the fundamental issues on which we agree we will be able to make a significant contribution towards improving the quality of health care for all South Africans. This we will be able to do though engagement … not boycotting … (and) talking to each other on a continuous basis’.

• written reply
• second presidential health compact
• NHI website

Published by SA Legal Academy Policy Watch

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