Madam Chair, in response to the issue of rand limits - that is to say, whether there is a limit to the money that can be spent on treating a human being or not - I say that is obviously never done in the public sector. It is definitely done in the private sector.
However, I can give this House an example of a case that arose when we were debating the issue of the national health insurance, NHI. This is a highly contentious matter. A doctor prescribed a drug that would have cost R400 000 per annum. The medical aid refused and said it can't afford that. The concerned patient went to court and, of course, won the case because it's his or her life and right.
In the public sector we don't make such decisions, unless we don't have the services. We can't offer people what we don't have. However, if we do have the services, we do give them to the people. For example, if the child who was born with her heart on the outside of the chest - unfortunately she passed away last week - had gone to a private hospital, it would have charged that poor family more than R1 million. However, because it was a public hospital, we were able to do it. We don't put rand limits, unless, as I've said, we simply don't have resources.
Regarding the issue of success and pertinent criteria, I agree that if, for instance, a patient is quite advanced in age and suffers from uncontrollable diabetes, he or she won't get a transplant because the new organ would be damaged as well. So, physicians will make such a decision and that is where issues and dilemmas of ethics come in. For example, one cannot tell a person that he or she is too old and he or she must go and die but, unfortunately, it's a reality.
With regard to the issue of uniformity, the House knows that our country, unfortunately, is not uniform in terms of riches. For example, one cannot offer the people in Limpopo the same thing that is being offered people here in the Western Cape. This does not only apply to health but to education as well. I'm sure the Minister here next to me will agree with me that what kids get in education in Limpopo is not the same as what kids get here in the Western Cape. I remember, for instance ... [Time expired.]