HEALTHCARE: 2ND PRESIDENTIAL COMPACT SIGNED BUT NOWHERE TO BE FOUND

HEALTHCARE: 2ND PRESIDENTIAL COMPACT SIGNED BUT NOWHERE TO BE FOUND

• 23 August 2024
• Health & Safety
• SA Legal Academy

The 2018 presidential health compact’s latest iteration may well have been signed on 22 August 2024 – albeit belatedly and in the absence of several key stakeholders – but where is it? At the time of writing, the document was nowhere to be found. Neither was a list of its signatories.

Business Unity South Africa (BUSA) was not one of them – as a strongly worded media statement on the matter has since confirmed. Among other things, it refers to a ‘unilaterally amended’ version of the iteration ‘transforming it into an explicit pledge of support for the National Health Insurance (NHI) Act’. Similar concerns are expressed in earlier statements issued by the South African Medical Association and the South African Health Professionals Collaboration – neither of which signed the new compact.

This notwithstanding, Deputy President Paul Mashatile’s speech at the signing ceremony drew attention to all that has apparently been accomplished since the first compact was signed in 2018, including:

• private sector ‘support’ for ‘health workforce development’
• ‘expanded’ access to medicines, medical devices and equipment
• the introduction of new technology to:
  • ‘improve patient records systems’ and ‘supply chain mechanisms’
  • streamline regulatory processes, and
  • ‘reduce backlogs’
• ‘the development of local manufacturing capabilities … to expand access to medicines’
• the construction of new primary healthcare and hospital facilities
• more public and private facilities meeting Office of Health Standards Compliance requirements
• improvements in healthcare budgeting, and
• reduced litigation.

According to the Deputy President, the second presidential health compact is expected to ‘build’ on these successes – among other things by being ‘responsive to the challenges facing our health system’. To that end, in his view, ‘with the NHI Act now signed into law, it is even more urgent that … (stakeholders) work together’ to ‘streamline standards and ensure quality of care, whether it is rendered at a public or private facility’.

Interestingly, a Government Communications & Information System February 2024 (surprisingly belated) report on the May 2023 second presidential health summit provides insights into the new compact possibly overlooked by its critics until the eleventh hour.  Apparently, a ‘tenth pillar’ has been added to the 2018 iteration – while ‘government and its partners are moving with speed to ensure these pillars are implemented in preparation for the rollout of … NHI’. Among other things the ‘tenth pillar’ covers:

• human resources development
• improved access to medicine, vaccines and health products
• ‘information systems and pandemic preparedness’
• improved public sector financial management
• ‘governance and leadership’
• ‘upgrading infrastructure’
• ‘community engagement’, and
• ‘private sector engagement’.

‘The compact also outlines the roles and responsibilities of each stakeholder.’ Did communication break down somewhere between the summit itself and the compact signing ceremony? 

• Deputy President’s speech
• BUSA statement
• South African Health Professionals Collaboration statement
• South African Medical Association statement
• 2018 compact

Published by SA Legal Academy Policy Watch

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