Tag: healthcare

Several research studies have shown that people spend most of their time at work. The average time spent in the workplace, over a lifetime, is 90,000 hours - a third of a person’s life. This means that organisations have a captive audience whose attitudes, thoughts and ideas can be positively influenced or changed not only for the gain of the company but also for the greater good of society.

The book provides a synthesis of the model that was used to launch the National Education Collaboration Trust (NECT) – a multi-stakeholder collaboration model and the role of enabling instruments like social capital, national heritage, and networking in operationalising partnerships between public and private sector role players – with the aim to drive education improvement.

The recently announced HealthConnekt Africa initiative has gained further traction as the GSMA and the Africa Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) signed a working agreement to ensure mobile connectivity to health facilities and workforce in Africa via the internet by 2030.

2023 is poised to be a year of accelerated change in and for South Africa. As the country heads toward a general election in 2024, a sea-change is on the cards. The African National Congress (ANC) are by all accounts on the point of obtaining below 50% at the voting booth; some estimates have the party even under 45%.

“While spending on government consumption has been held down over the last ten years, demand for public services has increased substantially. Meanwhile, as public employment in health, education and criminal justice has stagnated, employment by private companies providing the same services has surged.

The South African government started discussing the NHI (National Health Insurance) in 2003. After several poor attempts at starting, most people thought that a fully funded first-world healthcare system could never become a reality. Furthermore, the role of medical schemes was not clear since no policy direction exists in this regard from the Department of Health. Many medical schemes have since come out supporting the NHI, realising there is room for collaboration and more fundamental co-existence of the two healthcare systems.

South Africa is not only the most unequal country in the world, it also does not care well enough for its weak and sick. Its inequitable access to healthcare is iniquitous in many parts of the developing world. But to me, a former South African who left the country during one of South Africa’s darkest periods in history, which was rife with government oppression at the time, it reflects the legacy of apartheid.

During the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic, medical claims looked very different to the usual patterns. Now, however, the COVID-19-bubble has burst, and we are beginning to get back to greater levels of normalcy. One thing that COVID-19 highlighted was the need to have adequate healthcare in place.

Following President Cyril Ramaphosa’s State of the Nation Address (SONA), we have released an analysis of the speech. SA has registered 3.6 million cases of COVID-19 and just over 96,000 deaths to date.

The realisation came when I least expected it. We had been out of South Africa for five years when we met my parents, siblings and their families for a family holiday. Our children by then had gained New York accents and were stylishly attired in their overpriced fashion items, whilst the nieces and nephews marauded through the hotel in their 'Naartjie' outfits that were more akin to pajamas than to fashion.