By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
The University of Fort Hare (UFH) in partnership with Mail & Guardian hosted the National Election Debate on Wednesday, 17 April 2024.
ANC NEC member Parks Tau was heckled by an audience after mentioning what his party achieved in the past 30 years.
Five political parties took part in an election debate in Alice, in the Eastern Cape, on Wednesday night.
Tau dismissed criticism of the proposed R200 billion National Health Insurance (NHI) as “resistance” by private healthcare users.
He reiterated the ANC’s stance that a single-fund system will follow if President Cyril Ramaphosa signs the NHI Bill, which parliament passed in December. The legislation, he said, aims to ensure equitable access to quality healthcare.
Tau said the country had a two-tier healthcare system — public and private — and the former was “strained” while the latter was more developed.
“But what they [critics] are not saying is that even if you have private health insurance, you get a rebate on your taxes. So the state subsidises your access to the private health system.”
He added that quality healthcare should not only be the preserve of those who could afford the cost.
Siviwe Gwarube, debating on behalf of the Democratic Alliance, agreed that the country had a “two-tier healthcare system”, adding that “poor South Africans have been subjected to a broken healthcare system for decades”.
Economic Freedom Fighters deputy president Floyd Shivambu said South Africa should emulate Cuba’s preventative healthcare system to create universal access, saying the Caribbean country “contained diseases before [patients] reached tertiary healthcare facilities”.
“South Africa doesn’t have a healthcare system, it has a hospitalisation system where you wait for people to get sick so that you take them to hospitals,” Shivambu charged.
Inkatha Freedom Party deputy president Mzamo Buthelezi argued that the country still needed to keep state intervention away from the private sector, saying: “You cannot deny any South African his or her right to choose as to where [they] want to be cured.
“If you shut down the private sector, where will people go to be cured?” Buthelezi asked.
Action SA Eastern Cape premier candidate Athol Trollip, a former Nelson Mandela Bay municipality mayor, said his party who would forge a “partnership between the private and public health systems; get them to work together”.