{"id":364206,"date":"2020-01-07T14:04:54","date_gmt":"2020-01-07T12:04:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=364206"},"modified":"2020-01-07T14:04:54","modified_gmt":"2020-01-07T12:04:54","slug":"nhi-would-force-40-of-doctors-to-leave-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/lifestyle\/364206\/nhi-would-force-40-of-doctors-to-leave-south-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"NHI would force 40% of doctors to leave South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A growing number of doctors in South Africa object to the incoming National Health Insurance (NHI) system, with just under 40% planning to emigrate if a universal health-care system is implemented.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking to the <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.iol.co.za\/dailynews\/news\/corruption-will-get-worse-doctors-outraged-over-current-nhi-bill-39971011\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Cape Argus<\/a><\/strong>, the South African Medical Association (Sama) said the proposed changes found in the NHI bill could cause wide-scale harm to the delivery of health care if they are not managed properly, adding that the bill had been introduced at a time of deep public mistrust in the government.<\/p>\n<p>A survey conducted by Sama among its members from the public and private health-care sector found that 38% of respondents said they would consider emigrating if the NHI was fully implemented.<\/p>\n<p>Only 39% of doctors said they would not leave, 17% were unsure and 6% would emigrate for other reasons, the survey found.<\/p>\n<p>A recent\u00a0<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/350061\/south-african-healthcare-workers-say-they-are-emigrating-because-of-the-nhi\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">report<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>by trade union Solidarity has also warned that the incoming National Health Insurance (NHI) will have an impact on the healthcare industry.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe findings indicate that there is distrust towards the government regarding the way they want to implement and manage the NHI. 80% of respondents are negative or sceptical about the NHI,\u201d said Nicolien Welthagen, a research psychologist at the Solidarity Research Institute.<\/p>\n<p>Citing the results of this report, Welthagen said that the respondents do not believe the NHI will improve the healthcare system, and service delivery.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOnly 15% of respondents believe that it would be possible to successfully implement the NHI, and 84.5% are of the view that the implementation of the NHI could destabilise the healthcare system in South Africa and could harm the high-quality service already being provided by the private sector,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>Welthagen added that the report further highlighted the enormous risk that the emigration of health practitioners poses to the future of healthcare in South Africa.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere are serious concerns about a shortage of healthcare workers, the more so in view of the fact that 20.8% of the respondents indicated that they had already taken steps to emigrate, and a further 41.06% would consider emigrating when the NHI is implemented,\u201d Welthagen said.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Read: <a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/363654\/new-nhi-will-see-no-difference-between-private-and-public-hospitals-minister\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">New NHI will see no difference between private and public hospitals: minister<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A growing number of doctors in South Africa object to the incoming National Health Insurance (NHI) system, with just under 40% planning to emigrate if a universal health-care system is implemented.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":310426,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9876],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-364206","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364206","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=364206"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364206\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":364630,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364206\/revisions\/364630"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/310426"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=364206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=364206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=364206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}