Motsoaledi berates Africa’s sickly leaders while gutting SA’s private healthcare

It’s becoming a hot topic. Those on the left of the political spectrum think it is a disgusting betrayal of the collective.

Those on the right see it as the simple exercising of individual rights.

It is the issue of “health tourism” – the practice of avoiding inadequate local healthcare and instead jetting to foreign climes for sophisticated world-class medical treatment.

Simply put, it’s avoiding filth, incompetence and waiting lists characteristic of the “free” care at public hospitals, in favour of paying out of your pocket for immediate, top-rate treatment.

Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi believes health tourism to be a reprehensible practice.

At a recent conference he was forthright in his criticisms, which were met with a stony silence from those present.

That’s not entirely surprising, since he was speaking to an assembly of African health ministers. And the conference was being held in Zimbabwe, a country whose decrepit president spends more time in Singapore and Malaysia, being kept alive, than he does at home.

“We are the only continent that has its leaders seeking medical services outside the continent, outside our territory. We must be ashamed of that,” Motsoaledi said.

Motsoaledi is correct. But not for the reasons that he assumes.

It is disgusting that many African leaders plunder their treasuries, causing their nations to fall into rack and ruin.

It is also hypocritical of these leaders to seek abroad the medical care that they effectively deny their own citizens.

But not every African leader is a thieving rogue who should deservedly suffer if the health system at home can’t deliver critical care. There are honest leaders who are trying their best.

For example, there is President Ian Khama of neighbouring Botswana. And there is … Um …

Anyway, you catch my drift. There is no logical reason why the president of Nigeria, if desperately ill as recently happened, should not avail himself of better care in London, than he can get in Lagos. Or nip down to Johannesburg.

For South Africa has a private healthcare sector that is world-class. We are a destination for health tourism.

So, the ethics of health tourism, of which Motsoaledi is so confident, are not an issue in South Africa, at present. That is soon going to change.

The imminent implementation of the controversial National Health Insurance (NHI) scheme, if it takes the format that the hard-left element of the ANC wants, will disembowel South Africa’s private healthcare system.

At the root of the NHI approach is a deep antipathy towards the private sector. It is accompanied by a naive faith, contrary to all the evidence of what is happening, that state institutions can deliver services of similar quality as those of the private sector, more equitably and as competently.

The worst of all possible worlds looms. An overburdened public health sector will be brought to breaking point. The emigration of medical professionals will accelerate. It will be a vortex of pain and suffering.

Not for Africa’s political and business elite, of course. Those who used to come South Africa for treatment will simply go elsewhere.

A new lot will join them. It’s Motsoaledi’s political comrades who’ll be the new African health tourists. Should the good doctor need a quadruple bypass in 10 years’ time, God forbid, it’ll be interesting to see where the operation will take place. Any bets that it won’t be Bara?

William Saunderson-Meyer.