LETTER: Elephant in the waiting room

Frans Cronje’s letter made a lot of sense, as might be expected from him (“How to break NHI stalemate”, October 20). 

The practicality of the detail is adjustable, but NHI is essentially an extension of the SA medical aid system, which works way better than the systems I have come across in the US, the UK and Canada. It is working; extend it and from it. Don’t destroy it.

For me, the core of Cronje’s proposal is that it avoids the huge elephant in the room, which can be described very simply: government activity is still dominated by the ANC.

The party has proved over the past three decades that, with the exception of the SA Revenue Service (Sars), it is incapable of making anything work. Certainly not the existing public health system, which continues to deteriorate in the swamp of incompetence, mismanagement and endemic corruption. 

It is unbelievable that the solution the ANC seeks is to destroy a well-established system, which in effect serves about 10-million residents already, by forcing it into the same mess it cannot run or rectify. 

From its own bad experience the ANC should understand by now, if it would just open its eyes, that it is far easier to destroy than to rebuild. That has been amply demonstrated at Sars and is now desperately required but not yet achieved by government anywhere else. Why risk that again?

Roger Briggs
Edenvale 

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