National Health Insurance in South Africa
Healthcare Industry Perspectives on NHI
“BHF is the representative organisation for the majority of medical schemes throughout South Africa, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Botswana as well as Lesotho. As the industry representative body, the organisation relies on the membership of all medical schemes to ensure that it is able to lobby government and other organisations effectively and to influence policy where necessary on behalf of the entire industry.”
BHF has a section of its web-site devoted to NHI:
http://www.bhfglobal.com/national-health-insurance-nhi
HASA “is a not for profit organisation that exists solely to further the interests of its member hospitals. To this end HASA involves itself with national and provincial forums of the Department of Health, as well as their related committees and personnel.”
HASA commissioned extensive research on NHI and related health system topics from Econex.
http://www.hasa.co.za/analysts/economic/
The annual publication, Private Hospital Review, has several articles on NHI:
http://www.hasa.co.za/media/uploads/news/file/2009-06-09/Private_Hospital_Review_2009.pdf
“SAMA is a non-statutory, professional association for public and private sector medical practitioners. Registered as an independent, non-profit Section 21 company SAMA acts as a trade union for its public sector members and as a champion for doctors and patients. On behalf of its members, the Association strives for a health care dispensation that will best serve their needs. SAMA membership is voluntary, with some 70% of public and private sector doctors in South Africa currently registered as members of SAMA.”
The SAMA Conference and Exhibition 2010 carried the theme ‘’NHI: Where are we now?”http://conference.samedical.co.za/speaker-presentations.html
Articles on NHI in the South African Medical Journal can be found at:
http://www.samj.org.za/index.php/samj/index
Articles on NHI in 2010 were:
Vol 100, No 1 (2010) National Health Insurance exposed. J P de V van Niekerk
Vol 100, No 6 (2010) How will NHI affect my practice? Workshop seeks answers. Chris Bateman
Vol 100, No 10 (2010) Gvt crafts its own hospital quality standards, sans world class local body. Chris Bateman
Innovative Medicines South Africa (IMSA) was formed in 2003 and is a South African pharmaceutical industry association promoting the value of medicine innovation in healthcare. IMSA has a website devoted to NHI material and resources:
http://www.innovativemedicines.co.za/national_health_insurance.html
IMSA’s position on NHI:
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“IMSA supports NHI as a mechanism to increase patient access to quality affordable healthcare.
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IMSA is engaging earnestly towards developing NHI solutions that will provide universal patient access to efficient, quality healthcare, including medicines, for South Africans.
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IMSA is working with Government and other healthcare stakeholders to sustainably increase patient access to innovative medicines and transform the Health Sector to the benefit of all South Africans.
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IMSA as part of the Pharmaceutical sector is a significant contributor to the SA economy and seeks a sustainable policy environment in which to contribute further.”
The IMSA NHI Project “is dedicated to making material on healthcare financing and reform available to stakeholders to enable them to engage with Government on the details of proposals for a National Health Insurance system. It is about making a positive contribution to making NHI a reality.”
“The purpose of the IMSA NHI Policy Briefs and the related IMSA web-site is to put in the public domain material and evidence that will progress the technical work of developing a National Health Insurance system in South Africa. This includes tools for costing NHI and evidence on where savings could be achieved in moving to a future mandatory system with universal coverage. Professor Heather McLeod has been engaged to assist IMSA in this task, to bring an academic perspective and rigour to the collection and presentation of evidence.” See section 6.5 for the research and policy briefs.
IMSA invites all stakeholders and organisations to share material and to place more material and useful resources in the public domain. “In the interest of stakeholders engaging in the development of a system of universal access to healthcare IMSA has created this repository for information on this subject.”
“Since 1992, the Health Systems Trust (HST) has been contributing to the development of a comprehensive, equitable and effective national health system in South Africa. More recently HST has begun to work more widely within the SADC region. Our core activities are health systems research, health systems development, advocacy, capacity development and information dissemination. ... The underlying principles that guide HST are support for the Primary Health Care philosophy and a commitment to equity and efficiency. HSTs uniqueness lies in the ability to integrate knowledge generation, policy development and practice in health systems development.”
http://www.hst.org.za/index.php
Annual South African Health Review: http://www.hst.org.za/generic/29
The South African Health Review 2010 will have a chapter by Shivani Ramjee and Heather McLeod on private sector perspectives and response to NHI.
A series of videos on health reform in South Africa and stakeholder response were added to YouTube in May. The videos argued that a discussion document on NHI would be out in June 2010. The videos are entitled “SA Healthcare Under the Knife” and are introduced saying: “South Africa’s healthcare sector is set for a far-reaching facelift. The first draft of Governments proposed national health insurance plan is expected in June. And the market is waiting to see what this means for the 74 billion rand medical scheme industry. Will it change the structure of the industry, the number of players or the way things have worked forever? Can this plan achieve its goals of providing comprehensive healthcare for all South Africans? Will there be a place for the private health industry? What strategies are industry players putting in place now, as the deadline draws nearer.” The summary video and four parts can be found at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TthoCL0HCB4
South Africa’s Healthcare Sector Part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eICrWEvEr80&feature=related
South Africa’s Healthcare Sector Part 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4eGCaFmXKg&feature=channel
South Africa’s Healthcare Sector Part 3
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_AGtjftTEFk&feature=related
South Africa’s Healthcare Sector Part 4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVcJ636ikQ4&feature=related
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