NHI not being built on any one country’s model – Crisp

South Africa’s National Health Insurance (NHI) is not being modelled on the UK’s National Health Service (NHS), and reaction to Health Minister Joe Phaahla’s recent fact-finding visit to that country was “inappropriate and emotive”.

There was no one country on which SA could model its NHI, deputy director-general for NHI Professor Nicholas Crisp told Chris Bateman, writing for MedicalBrief, in response to a hard-hitting column in BizNews in which columnist Ivo Vegter slammed as “foolhardy” attempts to build the NHI by modelling it on the UK’s NHS.

Vegter berated Phaahla for the “belated” NHI fact-finding mission to the UK, questioning how any “profound discoveries” would be subsumed into an NHI Bill conceived 13 years ago and legislated for four years ago….more