Prof: Make health report public

2009-05-28 18:12

Johannesburg - The ANC working committee report on a proposed National Health Insurance (NHI) system should be made public to allow for debate, public health expert professor Heather McLeod said on Thursday.

"It is important to put it into the public domain so that we can discuss and comment on what is really going to happen."

McLeod was addressing an Innovative Medicines SA (Imsa) briefing on the country's move toward a national health system.

The ruling African National Congress had said it intended phasing in an NHI within the first year of this term of office.

A 200-page report was produced in February but, said McLeod, because it was not in the public domain there was no information on how the system would work.

For example, nothing was known about the role of the private health sector, nor how the millions of people who had no form of income would be included.

Imsa, which represented a number of pharmaceutical companies, had launched a website on the subject.

It had posted various background and discussion documents on the topic and planned to update the website once more information became available.

- SAPA