Medical professionals in SA consider migration
Large numbers of SA’s medical professionals say they will leave the country if they are forced to operate under the NHI.
South Africa faces a health crisis if huge numbers of medical professionals decide to exit the country.
As a result of the imminent decision regarding the introduction of a national health scheme (NHI), many of South Africa’s medical professionals are looking at options beyond the country’s borders.
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MEDICAL PROFESSIONALS
A recent study undertaken by the Solidarity Research Institute (SNI), revealed that a large number of medical doctors said they would quit working in South Africa if the NHI were to be implemented.
The results showed that:
- 94% of survey respondents believe SA’s private health practitioners might decide to work abroad because of NHI.
- 47% indicated they would start the emigration process as soon as the NHI is accepted in South Africa.
- 19% said that they had already initiated emigration processes.
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OPPOSITION TO NHI
Network coordinator of Solidarity’s medical networks, Peirru Marx has said that medical doctors who are members of the Solidarity Doctors’ Network oppose the NHI bill and would rather close up their practices than work under the government’s National Health Insurance (NHI).
“Our research shows that medical professionals do not support the NHI. They do not want to be part of it,” Marx said, per Daily Investor.
REASONS FOR EMIGRATION
While certain arms of government and some independent bodies support the implementation of the NHI, survey results showed that 0% of the medical practitioners surveyed are optimistic about it.
Marx said healthcare practitioners had witnessed how corruption, deterioration and mismanagement had impacted SA’s public healthcare system.
South Africa has a crumbling under-resourced public healthcare system with dilapidated hospitals and a shortage of qualified staff. The country is not producing sufficient numbers of new medical professionals either.
“There has not been a significant increase in the number of doctors produced in the past ten years. Moreover, we now produce 58% fewer nursing students than in 2012,” Marx said.