The DA has been vindicated in its stance against the National Health Insurance (NHI) Bill. If the Bill were to be signed into law today not a single public hospital in Mpumalanga Province would be NHI compliant.
According to the NHI, healthcare facilities will only be part of the NHI system if they meet certain standards of care and are accredited by an independent body called the Office of Health Standards Compliance (OHSC).
According to the National Department of Health Guidelines, health facilities must meet the following requirements to be issued with a NHI Compliant Certificate:
- Good infrastructure,
- Adequate staff,
- Adequate medicine and supplies,
- Good administrative processes and sufficient bulk supplies that use applicable clinical policies, protocols, and guidelines to ensure the provision of quality health services to the community.
The Mpumalanga Department of Health’s second quarter report for the current financial year lists all the hospitals in the province to have various reasons for failing to reach requirements of NHI status. The reasons ranged from the following:
- Non-negotiable vitals out of stock,
- Dilapidated infrastructure,
- Lack of maintenance materials,
- Shortage of PPE,
- Non-compliance with vitals,
- Consent forms did not contain necessary information,
- Emergency trolley items not available at depot.
- Piped oxygen not in place.
While President Cyril Ramaphosa looks for his pen, the Democratic Alliance (DA) will submit parliamentary questions to Mpumalanga Health MEC, Sasekani Manzini, asking what plan her department has devised or implemented to ensure that provincial hospitals reach Ideal status for NHI. The DA will also ask for a report on the ideal status of the clinics in the province.