- Three months into his second term as health minister, Aaron Motsoaledi shares his plans for rolling out National Health Insurance (NHI).
- Undaunted by legal challenges and political opposition, he says the government won’t continue subsidising private medical care to the tune of “R100-billion a year”.
- People who say the current healthcare system should be “fixed first” are a “joke”, because NHI is the solution, he says.
- But he admits that the NHI Act isn’t set in stone. Any supposed mistakes, like asylum seekers and undocumented migrants being unable to access HIV treatment, must be “corrected”.
- That, however, doesn’t mean the ANC would compromise on medical aids, says Motsoaledi — they will be scrapped under the NHI, at least in their current form, because the NHI Fund will be a giant state-funded medical scheme serving all South Africans.
In today’s newsletter, our Health Beat team unpacks Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi’s stance on the NHI. Sign up for our newsletter now.
Mia Malan is the founder and editor-in-chief of Bhekisisa. She has worked in newsrooms in Johannesburg, Nairobi and Washington, DC, winning more than 30 awards for her radio, print and television work.
Anna-Maria van Niekerk is Bhekisisa’s news editor. She joined the centre after six years as the managing editor of the investigative television show, Carte Blanche. Anna-Maria has an extensive career in in-depth health and human rights reporting and has been named both the Vodacom Journalist (2002) and Discovery Health Journalist of the Year (2010) for exposés on the selling of human body parts for muti in Limpopo and the devastating consequences of HIV denialism.
Jessica Pitchford is Bhekisisa's TV and multimedia editor. She's been a journalist since the early nineties and has reported on some pivotal events in South Africa’s political history, such as the country’s transition to democracy and the work of the Truth & Reconciliation Commission.
Ruan Visser is a South African-based freelance director of photography, crafting visual narratives with a keen eye for detail and a love for cinematic storytelling.
