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Some Key Messages on
National Health Insurance (NHI)
In summary, what is NHI?
NHI (National Health Insurance) is a health
financing system that is designed to pool funds
to provide access to quality affordable
personal health services for All South Africans
based on their health needs, irrespective of
their socio-economic status.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) and the
United Nations call it Universal Health
Coverage (UHC) because nobody is left
behind. UHC “is a set of objectives that health
systems pursue; it is not a scheme or a
particular set of arrangements in the health
system. Making progress towards UHC is not
inherently synonymous with increasing the
percentage of the population in an explicit
insurance scheme.” World Health
Organization, 2013. NHI is not like a medical
scheme. NHI will be for all South Africans in
keeping with the fact that health is a right in the
Constitution and hence cannot be for a
selected few.
In NHI your socio-economic status will not
matter but your health needs will determine
what form of service you get.
What are the main objectives of the NHI?
NHI aims to achieve Universal Health
Coverage for all South Africans. This
specifically refers to financial health coverage.
It aims to provide equity and social solidarity
through pooling of risks and funds.
It will create one public health fund with
adequate resources to plan for and effectively
meet health needs of the entire population not
just for a selected few.
Under the NHI regime, will there still be
private medical aid schemes?
Social Solidarity for quality health care for all
National Health Insurance is a way of providing good healthcare for all by sharing the money
available for healthcare among all our people. The health benefits that you receive will depend
on how sick you are, not on how wealthy you are.
Hospitals, clinics, doctors, specialists, dentists, nurses and all other health workers will also
be available to provide services to all much more equally. It all depends on our willingness to
SHARE as ONE NATION. If we can feel and act in unity about football and rugby, surely, we can
do the same when it comes to matters of life and death, health and illness. National Health
Insurance, known as NHI, is a chance for South Africans to join hands in a way that really
counts.
None of us would like a fellow human being to die, become disabled or live in pain just because
he or she could not get decent healthcare. But this is happening in our country where poor
people often have second rate healthcare while wealthier people can pay for good treatment.
South Africans from all walks of life and all parts of our country have the power to change this
tragic situation.
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Private Medical schemes will continue to exist,
but their role will change. When the NHI is fully
implemented they will provide cover for
services not reimbursable by the NHI Fund.
Medical schemes are voluntary organisation
and they will remain as such.
What about private health care providers,
will they continue to operate? If yes, what
will be different?
Let me first clarify two different concepts which
usually confuse many people .Private health
care has two very distinct and different arms
usually owned and operated by different
groups:
‒ One arm is called Health care funders:
These are mostly medical aid schemes, but
other funders include hospital plans, and
hospital cash plans. They pay for you when
you are sick.
‒ The other arm is called Health care
providers: These are mostly private
hospitals. But they also include private
specialists and General Practitioners as
well as allied health professionals in private
practice (Optometrists, Physiotherapists,
Occupational Therapists, Speech
Therapist, Dental Therapists and Oral
Hygienists etc.).
They provide you with health care and the
funder to which you belong pay for you.
The private health care providers will definitely
continue to operate. Contrary to popular belief,
NHI is not going to abolish or do away with
Private health providers. However, they will
operate under a completely different
environment created by NHI.
For instance, NHI will not allow them to charge
the exorbitant fees they are charging today,
especially the private hospitals.
Certain practices will not be allowed under
NHI. For instance, a health care provider will
not be allowed to start treating you and then
discard you and send you away after he/she
has exhausted all your funds.
Private ambulance providers will no longer be
allowed to pick up only people who have
medical aid, credit card or cash, at the scene
of an accident and leave behind the poor.
Section 27(3) of the Constitution will strictly be
applied under NHI.
It simply states that nobody may be refused
emergency medical treatment.
Under NHI, private providers will no longer be
allowed to charge you extra cash called co-
payment after NHI has paid them. Under the
present system, a private provider may charge
you extra cash up and above what your
medical aid has paid them.
Why do we need NHI?
Because our country believes that access to
healthcare is a human right.
This means every single one of us is entitled to
receive healthcare, and this should not depend on
how rich we are or where we happen to live.
The current two-tier healthcare system has a
number of problems including inequity, hospicentric
care, high cost, poor outcomes and inefficient. The
NHI is intended to address these problems.
The right to obtain healthcare is written into our
Constitution. Government has tried its utmost since
1994 to ensure that everyone in this country has
healthcare. Our government health budget has kept
increasing and our network of public hospitals and
clinics has grown
But still there are communities in rural areas that
cannot easily obtain care. Many residents in our
major cities rely on overcrowded public health
facilities with too few health professionals and poor
equipment.
In short, many people cannot yet get the care that
they need.
By changing the way our country pays for
healthcare, NHI will improve access to services for
the majority of people.
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Critics of the NHI say Government wants to
disrupt a private health care system that is
working well and that Government should
leave the private health care alone as this
reduces the burden of providing health
care from the State. What is your
response?
It is definitely not true that the private health
care is a system that is working well. This
assertion is a simplification of facts. For
starters, a system of health cannot be said to
be working well when it serves only a tiny
minority in the population (only 16% of South
Africans) and excludes the overwhelming
majority (84% of South Africans).
Secondly, the cost of private health care is
spiralling out of control with the results that the
medical aid contributions (premiums) are
increasing more than CPIX (Consumer Price
Index) while the benefits to patients are
reducing at a very fast pace. This is the only
sector in the socio-economic arena that is
behaving so. By 2030, if nothing is done to
financially protect households, middle income
households are likely to spend a third of their
income on premiums for medical aid.
Government cannot simple sit by and watch
this happen.
Most members of medical aid schemes run out
of benefits and are no longer covered from as
early as June until the end of the year.
You cannot therefore claim that a system is
working well when that system can take you
out of the ICU while you are still very sick,
simply because your benefits have been
exhausted.
Lastly, medical aid schemes are actually
collapsing under the weight of the high medical
costs. In 2002 there were 141 medical aid
schemes. Today we are left with 83 and still
counting down.
General practitioners (GPs) are systematically
being taken out of practice because they are
simply not paid or are paid very little by medical
aid schemes compared to private hospitals.
That is not a system that can be left alone!
Actually the National Development Plan (NDP)
states that if we need to fix the health system,
we need to deal with two (2) problems. Firstly,
to deal with the exorbitant cost of private health
care.
Secondly we need to deal with the problems of
the quality of the public health system.
As you can see, both systems need to be fixed
- not only the public health system.
It is for this reason that paragraph 2 of the NHI
policy document states: "NHI represents a
substantial policy shift that will necessitate a
massive reorganisation of the current health
care system, both public and private, and also
derives its mandate from the National
Development Plan (NDP) of the country".
Why do we need NHI?
Because we want a healthcare system that is fair
and equal.
While we are trying to build a more equal society,
healthcare is very unequal. The amount spent on the
healthcare of each person with medical aid is five
times the amount that is spent on each person who
relies entirely on public health facilities.
The funding gap translates into a major gap in the
standard of healthcare available to the rich and the
poor.
While eight out of 10 patients depend on public clinics
and hospitals, the bulk of the country’s doctors,
dentists and specialists serve a small section of the
population who can afford private healthcare. In a just
world, the sickest people – not the richest – should
receive the largest share of healthcare. NHI will bring
us closer to allocating health services according the
real needs of our people. This is not only fair, but it will
help us build a healthier nation.
By changing the way our country pays for healthcare,
NHI will improve access to services for the majority of
people.
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As it is, poor people can get free medical
care in public hospitals. Why do you feel
that we need an NHI to provide universal
health care?
Poor people may be getting free medical care
in public hospitals. But you and I know that free
care is very difficult to deliver without adequate
resources.
Resources are both financial and human. The
cream of the South African society, i.e. those
with huge financial resources and skills, have
hived off from the rest of society to have their
own health financing system (medical aid) and
health provision system (private hospital).
They have hived off with huge financial
resources.
Skills and professionals follow the financial
resources. Hence 80% of the specialists of the
country are in the private sector serving only
16% of the population. The remaining 84% of
the population is served by only 20% of
specialists.
Actually our country is spending 4.4% of the
GDP on only 16% of the population and only
4.1% for 84% of the population.
The services may be free, but it is a struggle to
deliver them with the meagre resources left in
the public health sector.
Some people argue that medical aid scheme
money is private money and we have no
business to meddle in it.
This is a serious distortion of facts The truth is
that medical aid schemes are subsidized for a
whopping R46,7 billion by the fiscus of the
country. If it was not for this very heavy subsidy
from the State, medical aid schemes will have
ceased to exist. People who are not on medical
aid do not have access to this subsidy.
In the words of the Director General of the
World Health Organisation (WHO), Universal
Health Coverage is an equaliser between the
rich and the poor!
It is only NHI that can bring this Universal
Health Coverage (UHC).
Universal Health Coverage is different from
Universal Health Care. Universal Health
Coverage specifically means covering each
and every citizen with a health financing
system that is equitable to all citizens, whereas
Universal Health Care means providing some
form of health care to citizens without
considering equity or without considering what
type of health care all citizens are getting. You
cannot divide the Nation into free but
inadequate medical care for the poor and high
quality but highly subsidised health care for the
rich.
That is not what our Constitution meant in
Section 27 when it said that Health is a right.
It is the elephant in the room the fact that
public health care is collapsing due to
factors such as under-funding, corruption,
politics and incompetence and perhaps if
we want to ensure quality service for the
poor we should deal with these problems
and not throw the baby with the bath-
water?
It is true that the public health care is under-
funded. But it is definitely not collapsing. It is
just dealing with a huge burden of disease and
a very huge population compared to private
health care which is over-subsidized but has
very few people to deal with.
As an example, let us start at the beginning of
life. There are 1.2 million women who fall
pregnant every year. The private health sector
takes care of only 140 000 of them with 80% of
the specialist doctors. The public health
system takes care of a whopping 1,060,000
with only 20% of the specialists.
As things stand, the biggest killer of South
Africans is TB. There are more than 400 000
South Africans being treated for TB each year.
All of them, regardless of their socio-economic
status, are treated by the public sector. The
private sector is treating none. The TB cure
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rate used to be 67% in 2009, it is now 85% by
2016.
The second biggest killer is HIV and AIDS.
There is an estimated 6 million South Africans
infected by this virus. The public sector is
treating 3.5 million of them whereas the private
sector despite the huge resources at their
command is treating only 200 000.
There used to be 70 000 babies born HIV
positive by 2004. Because of the very highly
successful PMTCT (Prevention of Mother-to-
Child Transmission) Programme, the figure is
now down to 6 000.
How can all this be achieved by a system that
is collapsing?
Corruption cannot be allowed in any system.
We need to fight it. It is not part of NHI.
In the White Paper on NHI, Section 8.6.3
paragraph 372-383, outlines what is being
proposed to deal with fraud and corruption
under NHI.
We cannot then associate NHI with corruption.
NHI abhors corruption because there can
never be development where there is
corruption.
What do you say to people who say NHI is
a Rolls Royce solution when we cannot
even afford a Toyota?
I will tell them that in fact a Rolls Royce is the
present system, whereby only 16% of the
population spends a whopping 4.4% of the
GDP on their health and leaving 84% of the
population with a measly 4.1% of the GDP.
Which one is a Rolls Royce in this situation? In
2002 expenditure on private health care was
R41 billion but by 2014 it was already R141
billion, but that is spent on only 16% of the
population. It is for this reason that the WHO
(World Health Organisation) and the OECD
(Organisation of Economic Cooperation and
Development) has declared that South Africa
is an outlier because we are the only country
in the world that is spending huge amounts of
money on very few people. Now that is a Rolls
Royce. Rolls Royces are extremely expensive
cars owned by very few people at the expense
of the majority. NHI is not designed to be a
Rolls Royce or a Toyota. It is designed to be a
transport system for all South Africans, which
is appropriate for all South Africans and which
is affordable for the country.
Chapter 2.3 of the NHI White Paper shows that
affordability is one of the eight (8) principles of
NHI. The others are social solidarity, efficiency,
effectiveness etc.
For NHI to succeed, many qualified health
professionals would be required. Given the
current shortage of skilled professionals
such as doctors and nurses, where will we
get professionals?
As it is at the moment, all countries in the
world, with the exception of Cuba, have a
shortage of health professionals. Sub-Saharan
Africa has been declared a crisis point in this
case. The Secretary General of the United
Nations has even come up with a global
solution for this issue.
Shortage of health workers is not a reason not
to implement Universal Health Coverage.
Actually Universal Health Coverage will help a
country like South Africa to effectively share
the small pool of health professionals that we
have. This shortage is exacerbated by not
sharing what we already have.
It is that one particular private hospital in
Johannesburg (name withheld) has 30
Specialist Gynaecologists. Limpopo Province
has only 7 fulltime South African
Gynaecologists to serve a total of 40 hospitals
in the whole public sector, Mpumalanga has 6
to serve a total of 33 hospitals and North West
has 7 to serve a total of 22 hospitals. We had
to get Cuban Gynaecologists to the rescue.
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As you can see, you have 98 hospitals in 3
provinces served by only 20 fulltime Specialist
Gynaecologists while you have 1 private
hospital served by 30 Specialist
Gynaecologists.
If a teacher has got only 16 learners to teach,
and another one has got 84 learners to teach,
comparing their performances without taking
this into consideration, is grossly unfair, a
distortion of facts and outright unscientific.
The solution to the gross inequalities I have
just outlined above is NHI (Universal Health
Coverage) whereby the whole population will
also have access to all the Gynaecologists that
exist in our country, whether public or private.
There are 3 000 Optometrists in South Africa
and only 250 of them are in the public sector.
If we share under NHI the shortage will
somehow be mitigated.
The NHI is not a beauty contest between the
public and the private health sectors, but it is a
system to make both sectors serve the whole
population in cooperation rather than
competition.
One of the biggest problems faced by the
public health care system is public
servants who simply do not care about
patients. How does the NHI propose to
change this?
The Office of Health Standards Compliance
(OHSC) and the Office of the Health Ombud
(South Africa's first Health Ombud) has been
established to address these problems. We
have even come up with a system of District
Specialist teams to supervise doctors and
nurses in their duties.
As you can see, we established all these in
preparation for NHI.
We have developed a National Quality
Improvement Plan that will standardise service
provision in all clinics and hospitals. This will
facilitate accreditation of these health facilities
to meet the requirements of NHI.
We also need strict application of the public
service laws and the LRA (Labour Relations
Act), as well as having good managers who
manage without fear or favour like the Health
Ombud!
What do you say to people who say the NHI
is not affordable?
What is not affordable is the present system.
People who believe that NHI is not going to be
affordable assume that under NHI, we are
going to allow the present high health care
costs! Both the WHO and the OECD have
already declared that South Africa is running
one of the most expensive health care systems
in the world.
The NHI is actually designed to fight these
expenses. Both the WHO and OECD state that
only 10% of South Africa's population can
afford the present private health care cost.
Clearly, it is the present system that is not
affordable, not NHI. Do you think under NHI we
are going to agree to pay R7 000 to R10 000
for a simple circumcision as it is happening
Why do we need NHI?
Because our two-tier system of paying for
healthcare has failed to guarantee good
quality healthcare for all.
At present government pays for the health facilities
that assist the poor and wealthier families use private
doctors and hospitals that they pay for through
medical aids. This two-tier system of funding locks the
poor out of reach of a large number of health
professionals and facilities in the private sector.
NHI will create a single pool of healthcare funding for
private and public healthcare providers alike. The NHI
Fund will pay public and private healthcare providers
on exactly the same basis – and expect the same
standard of care from both.
People in lower income groups will be able to consult
doctors in private practice and use private hospitals,
because the NHI Fund will pay for this care. The
burden of care will be spread much more equally
across the public and private sectors.
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today in the present private health sector? NHI
will not allow that. The problem is that people
wrongly believe that NHI is simply going to be
a bigger version of the present system. It is not
going to be.
It has been a few years since health system
strengthening projects were launched. How
are these going? What have been some of
the lessons from these projects?
Yes, we launched pilots in order to learn what
is feasible and what is not. We have learnt a
lot. Under the pilots, we have screened 4
million school kids for physical impediments to
learning like eyesight, hearing and oral
hygiene/speech. We now know how to tackle
that.
We have established District Specialist Teams
to supervise doctors in each district. We now
know where the gaps are. We have contracted
GPs to work in public clinics and learnt that we
also need to contract allied health care
professionals like Physiotherapists, Speech
Therapists, Oral Hygienists, Occupational
Therapists, Psychologists, Optometrists, etc.
Primary Health worker teams have visited no
less than 12 million households to check their
health status.
What are the critical stages for the
successful implementation of NHI?
(a) Establishment of NHI fund including
reviewing other relevant legislations and
inter-governmental functions and fiscal
framework that will be impacted by the
implementation of NH
(b) Reviewing all the subsidies that medical
scheme members receive from the fiscus.
(c) Making sure that the health care system is
re-orientated so that its heartbeat, as
mentioned in the White Paper on NHI, is
Primary Health Care (PHC). In other
words, a system that is based on 3 main
pillars:
(i) prevention of disease;
(ii) promotion of health; and
(iii) starting the entry to health care
system at the lowest level rather than
at the highest level of specialists and
tertiary hospitals.
(d) Preparation for Purchaser-Provider split.
This means a system whereby the
purchaser of health services for the
population (purchaser) is not the same
as the person who actually provide the
services (provider) as it is happening
presently in the public health care
system.
(e) Completion of the NHI policy paper and
promulgation of NHI Bill.
(f) Formation of Contracting Units for
Primary Healthcare so that they become
the purchasers of health for their
population from providers - both private
and public.
What other countries have implemented the
NHI? What have we learnt from these?
Many countries have started implementing
Universal Health Coverage even before the
United Nations adopted it as one of the 17
Sustainable Development Goals of the world.
Countries call it by different names but the goal
is one, namely Universal Health Coverage
whereby every citizen in every country has
financial coverage for their health care needs
instead of only a selected few as it is
happening in our country.
The United Kingdom (UK) started it in 1948
and called it NHS. Japan started in 1961.
Mexico started in 2001 and call it Seguro
Populare. Brazil has it, all the Scandinavian
countries have very good Universal Health
Coverage Systems.
On the African Continent, Ghana has started.
Rwanda has also started.
All 194 countries under the United Nations
have become signatories to the notion of
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Universal Health Coverage - which means they
are preparing to implement it.
Actually, the list of countries that have the
system or have started is not exhausted.
The country has serious budgetary
constraints is it not prudent to delay the
implementation of the NHI?
The answer is no, and a big no for that matter.
Other basic human needs such as water,
shelter, sanitation and even food, for that
matter, are useless if you are dead. We cannot
postpone access to basic human needs.. The
provision of quality health care should
supersede all other needs, because it is about
sustaining life. We cannot afford to delay the
implementation of the NHI.
In fact, when the economic situation in any
country is gloomy, that is the time citizens need
access to good quality affordable healthcare
more than ever before. NHI is intended to
provide just that. NHI is not a luxury that can
be delayed due to economic circumstances. It
is a necessity that is needed to rescue people
especially during tough economic times.
Otherwise, majority of people will succumb to
their ailments due to their weakened economic
status which will worsen the country's
economic situation even further.
The UK implemented it in 1948 and was driven
by the hardships brought by the Second World
War which had ended 3 years earlier. Due to
the World war, the British people were poor,
unemployed and sick. That is when they
needed it. They call it NHS. Same as the
Japanese who implemented it in 1961 to boost
economic growth also ravaged by the Second
World War. No economy ever grows when the
health system is not improved for the majority
of the people and no health system improves
when the overwhelming majority of its citizens
are outside the major funding mechanism of
the country health system.
In September 2015, 267 eminent economists
from 44 countries signed the Economists
Declaration on Universal Health Coverage
which concluded that the economic returns on
investing on UHC were more than 10 times the
costs.
Can you explain what the state subsidy to
medical schemes is about?
Yes. The total subsidy is actually R46,7 billion.
One of the abnormalities in the present health
system which NHI seeks to correct, is that
health is a condition of employment through
medical schemes. This is wrong because
section 27 of the Constitution says health is a
right not a condition of employment.
‒ GEMS members are subsidised for R17
billion.
‒ Non - GEMS members are subsidised for
R1,8 billion.
‒ SOE's members are subsidised for R7,2
billion.
Note that the subsidy of Non-GEMS members
is for members of Parliament and Judges - very
highly paid members of society, but they are
heavily subsidised - R1,8 billion.
SOE's workers are the highest paid members
of society. Some of SOEs top executives earn
more than five times what the President of the
country earns, but they are also heavily
subsidised for R7,2 billion.
GEMS members Such as nurses, doctors,
teachers and other senior public servants also
receive subsidies .
The total subsidy is R26,7 billion. Then come
tax credits. Every single person in South Africa
who is on a medical aid, employed in the public
sector or private sector, is entitled to tax
credits at the end of the tax year. The total
credits in the last tax year was R20 billion. Add
Budgetary constraints cannot be the reason to
delay the implementation of the NHI because
quality health care supersedes all other
human needs.
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R26,7 billion to R20,0 billion and you have
R46,7 billion.
According to the Finance Minister, Medical
Tax Credit is in line for a reduction in future
as part of financing the NHI. What is your
understanding of this statement?
It has always been our position in the White
paper on NHI. Paragraphs 308,309 and 400
are making it clear that we can't continue with
this subsidies and tax credits. They perpetuate
inequality and deny the majority of people in
our country access to good quality care and
financial risk protection when they utilise health
services.
We want to use the tax credits to establish the
NHI fund as a transitional mechanism to start
funding those who are outside the system of
medical aids, overwhelming majority of whom
are blacks, woman, children, adolescents,
people with disability, elderly, mentally ill
people and school kids. These are the people
who need health care more than all other
groups, but they are the ones who are outside
the major healthcare financing mechanisms of
our country.
According to Treasury, further details of
the funding model of the NHI would be
released soon. What are some of the
proposals on the table for discussions?
Any government anywhere in the world fund
government programmes for the benefit of
citizens mainly through tax, surcharges,
special levies or special contributions from
certain members of the society. This will also
be the case with NHI, as is the case with
Universal Health Coverage in any country.
What is the difference between an ordinary
clinic and the ideal clinic?
Paragraph 2 of the NHI white paper states that
NHI is a significant policy shift that will
necessitate a massive re-organisation of the
healthcare system, both public and private.
In re-organising the public health system, we
declared that the heartbeat of the healthcare
system under NHI will be Primary Healthcare
(PHC). This means a health system
characterised by three main attributes:
‒ Prevention of diseases
‒ Promotion of health
‒ Entry to the healthcare system through
clinics and GPs or other private primary
healthcare providers
It will be imperative that the clinics (PHC
facilities) must be in pristine conditions for this
purpose. They must be efficient, effective and
attractive for our people.
People must have a pleasant and
unforgettable experience after utilising
services in our clinics. Such clinics must have
good infrastructure (physical condition and
space, essential equipment, information and
communication tools, adequate staff,
adequate medicine and supplies which a
modern stock surveillance system). It uses
applicable clinical policies, protocols and
guidelines as well as stakeholder support to
ensure the provision of quality health services
to the community. This type of clinic is called
an Ideal Clinic.
How many clinics are classified as ideal?
Yes, at present there are 1930 clinics all over
the country that qualify as ideal clinics.
When we started in April 2015 not a single
clinic, zero, qualified as ideal. In 2013 we built
the framework of what this ideal clinic must
look like and tested it in 10 clinics in the NHI
pilot districts.
We took the framework into the Operation
Phakisa Ideal Clinic Lab in 2014 to develop the
roll-out plan.
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Is the private sector part of the
implementation of the NHI?
The private sector has always been part of
provision of health in our country. In NHI, we
want the citizens of South Africa to utilise
resources in both the public and the private
sector. NHI is a mode of cooperation and
equalisation rather than the present situation
whereby only 16% of the population can utilise
huge amount of resources in the private sector
while the masses cannot. It has always been
our intention to involve the private sector.
How is the NHI going to address the human
capital requirements for its successful
implementation?
Let me start by pointing out that there is a huge
shortage of human resources for health all
over the world, with sub-Saharan Africa
branded a crisis region in this regard. We have
tried to resolve this in several ways:
‒ We have expanded the Cuban training
programme from 80 students per annum
to about700 students per annum over a
three years’ period..
‒ We have asked the Universities to try
their best to admit as many medical
students as they possibly can. Wits
University started in 2011 by taking 40
extra students Other Universities have
followed. We have even opened the 9th
medical school of the country, which is
under the University of Limpopo.
Together with the private sector in health, we
have established a Public Health
Enhancement Fund and through it we have
now 70 medical students from the poorest
areas of the country who are pursuing their
studies paid for by this money contributed by
the private sector.
What are the critical stages to implement
the NHI?
Critical stages are the following:
The National Assembly and the National
Council of Provinces will consult and debate
the contents of the NHI Bill.
The Department will begin preparing for
implementation by continuing to register
patients into a master patient register to
prepare for the implementation of the NHI.
The Ministry of Health will set up an NHI
Implementation Office to prepare for the
introduction of the NHI Fund.
The Presidential Health Summit Compact
signed by the President and stakeholders will
be incrementally implemented. Some of the
key interventions include filling of vacant posts
for health personnel, improving and
maintaining hospital and clinic infrastructure,
improving access to medicines, equipment and
medical products.
The Office of Health Standards Compliance
will certify health facilities that will become part
of the NHI.
The National Quality Improvement Plan will be
implemented in preparation for accreditation of
providers and establishments to provide NHI
services.
