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ActionSA welcomes the Gauteng High Court's declaration that Sections 36 to 40 of the National Health Act are invalid and unconstitutional.

ActionSA believes that Sections 36 to 40 was unjust in that it sought to require that health care practitioners had to first obtain a certificate of need (CoN) from the Health Department before they could establish a practice in a specific area. 

At its core, the attempt to overburden healthcare practitioners with a cumbersome bureaucracy centred in the already constrained Department of Health was rightly ruled invalid by Judge Anthony Miller. Therefore, ActionSA wholly welcomes the court's intervention, which ensures that we uphold the rights of healthcare practitioners, allowing them to operate without the weight of an overbearing bureaucracy.

What is undoubtedly a blow to the National Health Insurance (NHI), the court's ruling adds creditability to the already lengthy list of concerns about the NHI. ActionSA has long argued that NHI, while well-intentioned, is ill-conceived and will not address the shortcomings of the healthcare system in South Africa. 

Importantly, ActionSA contends that NHI will merely add a third tier to the existing public and private healthcare systems, creating a loophole for budgetary irregularities that could enable corruption and further collapse the healthcare system.

ActionSA is committed to providing safe and accessible healthcare to all South Africans and will work tirelessly to achieve that goal, by fighting to ensure that the government addresses the abysmal state of public healthcare and the massive challenges in private healthcare. 

ActionSA therefore calls on the government to start by implementing the Health Market Inquiry recommendations from 2018, instead of pursuing ill-conceived policies that will do far more harm than good. We also reiterate our call that public representatives, particularly members of Parliament, must start using public healthcare services.

Issued by ActionSA Member of Parliament Dr. Kgosi Letlape