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NATIONAL HEALTH ACT: HEALTH MINISTER AARON MOTSOALEDI RESPONDS TO COURT RULING
- 26 July 2024
- Health & Safety
- SA Legal Academy
Please note: On 29 July 2024, this report was edited to correctly reflect the gist of the media statement concerned. We apologise for any confusion our original report may have caused.
The Department of Health has issued a media statement on Minister Aaron Motsoaledi’s response to a recent Gauteng High Court (Pretoria) ruling declaring sections 36-40 of the National Health Act, 2003, unconstitutional – with possible implications for introducing national health insurance (NHI).
According to the statement, in arriving at the ruling the Court appears to have focused on ‘economic property rights at the expense of the right to health’. Against that backdrop, the statement:
- draws attention to the overarching objective of the National Health Act’s sections 36-40, which is to regulate licensing processes affecting ‘the establishment of health facilities, equipment and services’, be they public or private
- notes that, by contrast, the certificate of need for which provision is made in the NHI Act ‘is meant to achieve two important objectives’:
- ‘to regulate (the) quality and standard of healthcare … provided in a particular facility’, and
- to determine the appropriateness of plans to establish or extend a healthcare facility in a particular area, increase the number of its beds or install certain equipment
- draws attention to the Competition Commission’s 2019 health market inquiry report, which among other things:
- recommends the implementation of ‘a standardised centralised licensing regime’, noting that critical elements of an improved licensing framework include:
- the ‘assessment and protection of market need per speciality’
- ‘a means of delivery (in-patient, out-patient and day care)’, and
- an ‘assessment of clinical impact’, and
- recommends the implementation of ‘a standardised centralised licensing regime’, noting that critical elements of an improved licensing framework include:
- notes that the NHI Act simply seeks to ensure that, having obtained a practice number, a doctor practises in an environment appropriate to the provision of healthcare services (just as the Pharmacy Act seeks to ensure that pharmacies are located in areas appropriate to the services provided).
Please click the links below for more information:
- media statement
- NHI Act
- 2019 health market inquiry report
Published by SA Legal Academy Policy Watch
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