Cape Town- Successfully implementing a
National Health Insurance (NHI) scheme could take up to 25 years, the
National Planning Commission said on Wednesday.
Building an NHI system is among the
objectives contained in the revised National Development Plan (NDP),
handed to President Jacob Zuma in the National Assembly.
The 20-year plan names four
prerequisites for a NHI scheme to work.
Critical factors include "improving
the quality of public healthcare, lowering the cost of private care,
recruiting more professionals in both the public and private sectors,
and developing health information systems that span public and
private health providers".
The revised NDP says healthcare reforms
will demand significant resources, and take time. It will also
require strong co-operation between the public and private sector.
Other healthcare objectives contained
in the plan include drastically increasing South Africans' life
expectancy to 70 years, as well as reducing injuries, accidents and
violence by 50% by 2020.
A list of actions to achieve this are
listed in a summary in the plan.
The document also sets out minimum
norms and standards for staffing hospitals and clinics.
It also calls for minimum
qualifications for hospital managers.
The NDP says while huge strides have
been made in the approach to tackling HIV/Aids over the past five
years, there is no room for complacency in this regard.
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