I am sure this House wouldn't want me to discuss leaked reports because ...
IsiXhosa:
... andazi nto kuba bendingekho. Andazi nto tuu ngengxelo ethe yathutyeleziswa yaphumela ngaphandle. Andiyazi ukuba ithutyeleziswe ngubani, phi, eyenzela ntoni loo nto, bendingekho mna.
English:
So, I won't discuss a leaked report. I don't know it. What I can say is that we must be careful not to confuse two things. The first one is an ideological opposition to NHI which is prevalent amongst certain sections of our population particularly those who feel that NHI is meant to disrupt their current health system - that's an ideological position. And there is this real practical need amongst the majority of the people for access to good quality health care. Therefore, NHI idea is to fast-track the process through which the majority of the people can have good health care as well. This does not mean that. The confusion which is normally in the people's minds that we have to wait for the implementation of NHI before we can fix our hospitals is not true. We have to continue the best that we can with the means at our disposal to make sure that our people have good health care facilities. And they are there. So we have to make sure that there are doctors in the hospitals, there are nurses, the cleaning staff is there to clean the wards on time, there is rubbish collection, gardens are well looked after, there is medication in the pharmacy, there is proper food for the patients, ambulance system works, and so on. We don't have to wait for NHI to do that.
I visited Letaba Hospital the other week. I was impressed by what the management of the hospital together with the medical staff are doing there. They are beginning to attract young medical doctors to
come and work at the hospital. The hospital is clean, presentable and it is doing the right thing. Imagine, Letaba Hospital is a provincial hospital and is quite a large hospital. But the mistake that we are making is that we are not providing sufficient education to our people to say that Letaba Hospital is a referral hospital. As a result, the medical staff there ends up handling things which should have been handled at the clinic or at another hospital, but they end up at a provincial hospital. It is part of the system that we must fix as we move towards the national health insurance. We don't have to wait for that time. We can do things today. Thank you very much.