Govt: Health system 'primitive'

Cape Town - South Africa's model of health care financing is "primitive" and will be abandoned, Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi said on Tuesday.

"The present system of health care financing can no longer be allowed to go on, because it is simply unsustainable," Motsoaledi said during his budget vote speech in Parliament.

He said of the 8.5% of the GDP that was spent on health care, only 3.5% of the GDP catered for 84% of the population's health care. The other five percent catered for just 14% of the population or seven million people.

"Nowhere in the civilised world can you find that state of affairs," he said.

"The present model of health care financing is just outright primitive and we are going to abandon it."

Motsoaledi said critics of the government's proposed National Health Insurance (NHI) were "hard at work" to prove that the government was going to overburden the rich.

"NHI is a system of universal health coverage where every citizen is covered by health care insurance, rich or poor," he said.

One health economist said earlier in June that the system was a "completely unworkable, unaffordable solution that won't improve health services despite massive increases in expenditure".

One of the proposals in the NHI is said to be a tax on all employed South Africans in order to create universal access to health care.

The National Education Health and Allied Workers' Union has backed the NHI, saying it is disappointed at criticism of the scheme.

"It is this part of covering the poor and the unemployed that is bringing discomfort and unprecedented anger in the minds of the enemies of NHI," Motsoaledi said.

On Aids, he said the government would "intensify efforts" to help provinces reduce the rates of multiple sexual partners.

He said the health department would work to ensure that 80 percent of HIV-exposed infants received antiretroviral drugs for preventing mother-to-child-transmission in 2009/10.

- Sapa