Black Sash to hold Provincial workshops on health care reforms in 2010
The Black Sash, in partnership with the Health Economics Unit (HEU) at UCT and Health-e News Service, will be holding a series of Provincial workshops during 2010 to give civil society an opportunity to contribute towards the proposed health care reforms in South Africa. The possible introduction of a national health insurance (NHI) is arguably the most important issue currently on the health policy agenda, with implications for the whole health system. There has been almost no public engagement as yet around the principles that should underlie changes in our health care system or on associated critical and contentious areas of policy design. We believe it is essential that the views of the relatively ‘voiceless’ majority are elicited and fed into the policy process.
As the NHI process is already underway, public preferences should be fed into policy discussions as soon as possible. However, finalising the reform design and its implementation will take considerable time, which allows for more detailed and ongoing elicitation of public preferences to be undertaken.
The purpose of this project is to disseminate information on current health system challenges and health system reform options; to provide regional civil society platforms for information sharing and preference elicitation with respect to national health system reform; and to ensure that these preferences are taken into account in policy deliberations. The intended impact of this project is that the policy proposals for health system reform will reflect public values and be in line with public preferences.
Download the HEU information sheet on 'Public Sector Health Care Spending in South Africa'
Download the HEU information sheet on 'Medical Schemes' Spending in South Africa'
Download the HEU information sheet on 'Public-Private Health Sector Mix in South Africa'
Download the HEU information sheet on 'Who Pays for Health Care in South Africa'