LETTER: SA can’t afford NHI

I want to thank Business Day for publishing the article by Therese Raphael, a health professional who has personal experience of the NHS in the UK (“Millions of Brits queue for medical care amid huge backlogs”, August 15). Maybe the government will realise that it was never going to be easy for SA to implement a successful and sustainable National Health Insurance scheme with our long-suffering economy, which could never support the funding necessary for universal healthcare.

Any attempt to ignore all the warnings would only collapse what we have, with dire irreversible consequences such as what happened in Zimbabwe. In 1992 then president Robert Mugabe introduced a form of universal healthcare coverage; it failed spectacularly and has never recovered. It has been crisis upon crisis that has now spilt over to SA.

Cuba is another example finding it difficult to sustain their universal healthcare coverage system, and depends on its diaspora for support as it runs short of medicines and other important resources. It’s important to learn from the successes or failures of others.

Cometh Dube-Makholwa
Midrand

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