The National Health Insurance is now law in South Africa.
President Cyril Ramaphosa has officially signed the National Health Insurance (NHI) Bill into law.
The president signed the NHI into law at a ceremony on Wednesday at the Union Buildings in Pretoria.
The president highlighted that the National Health Insurance (NHI) seeks to create equality in healthcare by integrating fragmented systems.
The initiative aims to address the imbalance where the private sector serves a small portion of the population, leaving the public sector strained and underfunded.
“The passage of the bill sets the foundation for the ending of a parallel, inequitable health system where those without means are relegated to poor health care as described in 1943. Under the NHI access to quality care will be determined by need not by ability to pay.
This will produce better health outcomes and prevent avoidable deaths as they also envisaged in 1943. The NHI is an important instrument to also tackle poverty as they these leaders envisaged in 1943 as they said it was responsible for overcrowding for poverty. The rising cost of healthcare makes families poorer,” said Ramaphosa.