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NEHAWU STATEMENT ON THE RULE 53 ORDER ISSUED BY THE NORTH GAUTENG HIGH COURT REGARDING THE SIGNING OF THE NHI ACT

The National Education, Health and Allied Workers’ Union [NEHAWU] notes the Rule 53 order issued yesterday by the North Gauteng High Court regarding the signing of the National Health Insurance Act by President Cyril Ramaphosa.

Accordingly, the President is required to submit a comprehensive record of the proceedings that influenced his decisions to enact the bill. It is indeed ironic that this order comes a little more than a week before the first anniversary of the watershed moment when President Ramaphosa signed the National Health Insurance Act into law on the 15th May 2024.

It is unfortunate that this procedural court order is already depicted as a “landmark ruling” by some of the country’s nakedly biased and shamelessly mendacious media. The same attitude was embarrassingly demonstrated last year when the High Court ruled against the Certificate of Need clause in the National Health Act, which had nothing to do with the NHI Act and was hardly ever implemented over 20 years. The same media was already claiming that the ruling against the Certificate of Need clause was “a blow” and that the NHI was unconstitutional.

With regard to the Rule 53 order issued yesterday by the North Gauteng High Court, NEHAWU condemns the fact the Board of Health Funder (BHF) and the South African Private Practitioners Forum continue to oppose equitable access to decent healthcare for all, despite their dishonest claim that they support universal health coverage. Only last month the same High Court ruled against the BHF’s pathetic Low-Cost Benefit Options peddled as an alternative to the NHI.

It is interesting that the opponents of universal health coverage have now resorted to oppose this internationally supported and noble WHO principle on procedural grounds as they know that their argument on the content of the NHI policy and legislation are flimsy. This desperate attempt to find flaws in the consultation and decision-making processes is nothing but a figleaf in an attempt to preserve the personal interests of the often dodgy medical scheme bureaucracy and profiteering doctors that are benefiting from the current unjust healthcare system.

The process of consultation on the NHI is absolutely beyond reproach since the policy was introduced for public consultation through the Green Paper in 2011. The dishonest media claims that there has been “widespread dissent” prior to the signing of the NHI Bill, blatantly ignoring the fact that the NHI has been endorsed by absolute majorities of the electorate in the past three consecutive elections prior to the assenting of the bill in 2024 by President Ramaphosa.

The dishonest media ignores the fact that both the White Paper on the National Health Insurance and the NHI Bill underwent thoroughgoing processes of consultation at NEDLAC; that the NHI was endorsed by two Presidential Health Summits and that the bill was overwhelmingly supported in two sets of public participation process in all nine provinces and passed by majorities of our law-makers in the National Council of Provinces and National Assembly.

Only last year, on the 22nd August 2024, President Cyril Ramaphosa signed the Second Presidential Health Compact. This followed the 2023 Presidential Health Summit and the compact brought together labour, government, business, health professionals, statutory councils, academia, researchers and civil society. The compact sets out ten key pillars to be addressed, key amongst which is Pillar One which compels the state to augment Human Resources for Health, which is pivotal towards the realisation of universal health coverage.

NEHAWU urges the ANC-led seventh administration to move with speed in implementing Pillar One in line with the phased implementation plan and towards the fulfilment of the NHI policy and legislation and more importantly Section 27, Subsection 1 of the Constitution.

END

Issued by NEHAWU Secretariat.

Zola Saphetha (General Secretary) at 082 558 5968; December Mavuso (Deputy General Secretary) at 082 558 5969; Lwazi Nkolonzi (NEHAWU National Spokesperson) at 081 558 2335 or email: lwazin@nehawu.org.za