The recent high profile signing of the National Health Insurance Act set me thinking about the public perceptions of healthcare in South Africa. In a South African context one hears much about problems experienced in the public health sector but less about those in the private health sector. In the public health sector issues relate to the poor quality of healthcare while in the private sector the issue most frequently is the high cost of services. I have had the advantage of having worked for forty years in the South African public health sector and subsequent to my retirement being part of, or having undertaken, various investigations into public health…
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National Health Insurance NHI … the “final countdown” … or not!
In May 2023 I wrote a post titled “National Health Insurance … will logic prevail?” Now a year later, in May 2024, it appears to me that emotion and political necessity rather than logic has prevailed certainly amongst the ruling party. I do not intend to repeat an analysis of what is contained in the now NHI Act signed by President Ramaphosa but rather to consider the consequences of his doing so 15 days prior to a general election in which the political party which he heads faces for the first time possible, but probably unlikely, election defeat. The President has defended his actions with the argument that the delay…
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Some personal thoughts on age and ageing
Aging something that faces all of us but a reality that few think of when they are young. At the risk of stating the obvious it is an inevitable process that no-one escapes. Those of you who know me personally will know that I have had grey hair, a marker of advancing years, for a very long time starting in my thirties. My age, in addition to the grey hair, chronologically places me at the upper end of the spectrum of life expectancy for male South Africans. In January this year I needed readmission to hospital for the repair of an incisional hernia, a consequence of my previous admission to…