Minister of Health Aaron Motsoaledi will establish a standard compliance body before government’s National Health Insurance (NHI) is implemented in 2012, he has announced.
“Before being accredited for the NHI an institution will first need to go through a certain quality standard process.
Hence we will need to establish an office of standard compliance via a statute of Parliament,” Motsoaledi told the national consultation on quality health services today.
The consultation was meant to lay ground work for the implementation of the NHI.
Motsoaledi said each hospital would have to satisfy the department that it paid attention to quality health care before being made part of the NHI.
“The NHI is not going to be an event but a process.”
He said the department would start with the poorest districts and help them to prepare for the NHI.
He highlighted six key areas on which the hospitals would have to focus in order to be part of the NHI.
These included cleanliness, safety and security of patients, reduced queues at hospitals, infection control measures and drug stock-outs.
Motsoaledi emphasised the importance in the change of attitudes of health care workers and that of proper management.
He said the government was in the process of overhauling the country’s health system and that it was focusing on quality to improve the state of health.
As part of its intervention the government would introduce its NHI.
Motsoaledi said private and public institutions would have to be accredited for the NHI.
