The Aaron Motsoalaledi, might not have been politicking after all when he suggested that introduction of the National Health Scheme (NHS) was a definite route that the country was supposed to take for every South African to access quality health care. The chairperson of the Council for Medical Schemes (CMS), Professor Yosuf Veriava, concurred concurred with him.
In his year-end report, Veriava said that one of the challenges to have emerged after 1994 was that quality health care was the preserve of the privileged few.
He observed that the South African health care delivery system had two functionally separate and distinct components – the public sector component, which served 83% of the population and the private sector component, which was better-resourced, but only served 17% of the population.
“The mismatch of resources in the public and private health sectors and inefficiencies in the use of available resources have, to some extent, contributed to the poor health status of South Africans,” Veriava lamented:
According to the annual report, there are 8.8 million medical scheme members, belonging to 83 medical schemes. 3 921 232 main members have 4 893 226 dependents.
