Thank you House Chairperson, the EFF rejects the Budgetary Review and Recommendation Report, BRRR, of the Portfolio Committee on Health. This is fundamentally the reason why the government has failed and refuse to admit to our people that it has ushered a complete collapse of the public health care system our country.

Children as young as three-years-old with hearing disabilities are expected to buy their own hearing aids. The department has also failed to regulate the compensation of miners as there are no repercussions whatsoever for mining companies who do not compensate miners for sicknesses and death due to mining.

Nine out of 10 people living and receiving antiretroviral drugs, ARV, treatments are female and yet there is still no effective programme by the department to address the stigma in men's communities. Young women are still being used as HIV testing kits by men is a form of gender-based violence and should be treated as such by the department.

For a government that fakes being concerned about preventing new HIV infections, it is disingenuous that post-exposure prophylaxis, PEP, is only accessible to those who have access to private doctors and prescriptions. According to this government, easy access to PEP is only attainable by the poor if they are raped.

The National Health Insurance, NHI, referral system is also very unrealistic for those living in remote areas. Currently, our people have to set appointments to see doctors in clinics and sometimes have to wait for up to two weeks in dejected areas like Upington. The poor will literally die waiting to get referral letters.

We repeat that the focus of the department must move to prevention, primary health care, and education on health care. If you are committed to lessening the burden of disease, ensure that each clinic and hospital has adequate staff, that infrastructure is prioritised and ward-based with 24- hour health facilities in each ward. Otherwise, it is futile to take our youth to Cuba to study medicine through a system that focuses on prevention and primary health care only to come back to

South Africa and be under utilised because our government is full of lazy thinkers and filled with thugs. We reject this report. [Applause.]