Solidarity heads to court to challenge ‘unimplementable’ NHI

Trade union Solidarity says it is getting ready for a major court challenge against National Health Insurance (NHI).

This is after the National Assembly approved a law on Tuesday that will pave the way for the introduction of universal health insurance. The health financing system is designed to pool funds to provide access to quality affordable healthcare to all South Africans.

The plan’s critics have argued it will be financially unsustainable and impossible to implement effectively.

Solidarity said its comments on the proposed law had taken the form of legal documents and that it had instructed its legal team to start preparing for a court case.

“We realised from the outset the NHI would probably be tested in court. The government’s plans to capture healthcare are unaffordable and unimplementable. It will lead to a mass exodus of health practitioners from the country,” Solidarity CEO Dirk Hermann said.

The Solidarity Research Institute (SRI) has undertaken comprehensive research in the medical sector, which apparently shows that the adoption and implementation of NHI will lead to a huge exodus of medical professionals from SA, he said. 

“The government has already failed with the public healthcare system and it now wants to fail on an even bigger scale. It has a history of failure when it comes to state enterprises, and there is no reason to believe the proposed NHI would not be to the serious detriment of South Africans.

“We cannot trust the government and we cannot deliver our medical professionals to them and trust our health to their hands.”

Hermann said this is would be a major court battle.

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