In-Depth: Tracking the National Health Insurance



More than thee years ago, Health Minister Dr Aaron Motsoaledi announced 10 districts across the country that would pioneer what may be the biggest revolution in health since the introduction of antiretrovirals: The National Health Insurance (NHI).
One common medical aid for all South Africans, as envisaged by government’s proposed NHI, could remedy huge inequalities in access to health care in the country.
Together, initial NHI pilot districts comprise 20 percent of the population and have already begun rolling out primary health care innovations including district clinical specialist and ward-based outreach teams, more convenient chronic medication dispensing schemes and given school health a booster shot.
As the White Paper awaits Cabinet approval, according to the Department of Health, Health-e News charts the NHI’s first three years in our latest In-Depth Report.
NHI far from reality but progress made in improving public health
One common medical aid for all South Africans, as envisaged by government’s proposed National Health Insurance (NHI) scheme, is many years away, but many of the country’s 10 pilot sites are making progress.
Gauteng, North West lead country in new community health team
With almost 100 community health teams scouring the district’s streets, Tshwane and North West’s Dr Kenneth Kaunda districts are leading South Africa in pioneering community health as part National Health Insurance (NHI).
Doing things differently in KZN
There’s a quiet revolution in one of the poorest districts in the land, where health workers have moved out of health facilities into communities to prevent rather than cure health problems
Poor conditions scare GPs away from public sector
Poor conditions in some National Health Insurance (NHI) pilot districts are causing general practitioners to think twice about working in public health
School health teams take screenings to rural children
For the country’s rural children, the revitalisation of school health services could be a lifeline – if doctors and specialists answer the call.
New system lets patients pick up medicine from shops
Patients in rural KwaZulu-Natal are able to pick up their medicine from a wide range of local pick-up points, in a national experiment aimed at cutting the long queues at hospital pharmacies.
Other recent In-Depth reports from Health-e News:
- In-Depth: Water trucks take over as communities run dry
- In-Depth: Mpumalanga’s deadly debt
- In-Depth: Shots in the dark – vaccines in South Africa
Author
-
Health-e News is South Africa's dedicated health news service and home to OurHealth citizen journalism. Follow us on Twitter @HealtheNews
View all posts
Republish this article

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Unless otherwise noted, you can republish our articles for free under a Creative Commons license. Here’s what you need to know:
-
You have to credit Health-e News. In the byline, we prefer “Author Name, Publication.” At the top of the text of your story, include a line that reads: “This story was originally published by Health-e News.” You must link the word “Health-e News” to the original URL of the story.
-
You must include all of the links from our story, including our newsletter sign up link.
-
If you use canonical metadata, please use the Health-e News URL. For more information about canonical metadata, click here.
-
You can’t edit our material, except to reflect relative changes in time, location and editorial style. (For example, “yesterday” can be changed to “last week”)
-
You have no rights to sell, license, syndicate, or otherwise represent yourself as the authorized owner of our material to any third parties. This means that you cannot actively publish or submit our work for syndication to third party platforms or apps like Apple News or Google News. Health-e News understands that publishers cannot fully control when certain third parties automatically summarise or crawl content from publishers’ own sites.
-
You can’t republish our material wholesale, or automatically; you need to select stories to be republished individually.
-
If you share republished stories on social media, we’d appreciate being tagged in your posts. You can find us on Twitter @HealthENews, Instagram @healthenews, and Facebook Health-e News Service.
You can grab HTML code for our stories easily. Click on the Creative Commons logo on our stories. You’ll find it with the other share buttons.
If you have any other questions, contact info@health-e.org.za.
In-Depth: Tracking the National Health Insurance
by Health-e News, Health-e News
June 4, 2015
MOST READ
Tembisa hospital open to the public, cause of fire under investigation
Gauteng Health’s cost-cutting measures could leave patients waiting over 4 months for care
Tembisa Hospital closed to new patients following emergency unit fire
Eastern Cape Health struggles to repair weather-damaged facilities
EDITOR'S PICKS
Related

Stories From The Ground: Nurses at Zithulele Hospital forced to use one needle for the whole ward

South Africa’s healthcare system: eight steps that would get it on the right track


Stories From The Ground: Nurses at Zithulele Hospital forced to use one needle for the whole ward

South Africa’s healthcare system: eight steps that would get it on the right track
