OPINION - The government has made it quite clear: the NHI will be fully implemented by 2026.
The nation is in a state of panic. The private sector is foreseeing disaster, the wealthy are dreading the thought of sitting in a queue in a government hospital while those who have depended on the luxury of private hospital stays are wondering what the future holds for them.
We have to look at the positive spin-offs that this system will initiate.
We’ll have to look after ourselves. In our hospital-centric society, this will come as a culture shock. Now, more than ever, we need to think carefully before we stuff our faces with junk. We’ll have to think about physical fitness and we’ll have to conjure up all means to stay out of hospital. That’s a good thing. All the advertising and health warnings will not achieve what the NHI will. For the first time those sedentary couch potatoes who have chronically scoffed at healthy eating and exercise will be scurrying for the gym and diet books.
The fear of losing their medical aid and the access it gave them to quality medical care is the stuff that nightmares are made of. For so long the wealthy and unhealthy, who confused private hospitals for hotels, have waltzed into their private wards so that their specialists could investigate the repercussions of their over-indulgence. Those days will be history. Soon, overindulgence may land you in a government hospital, next to a rural inhabitant who has not had the luxury of water and a bath for three days.
You may end up in a ward that looks like most people’s maid’s quarters, and there is the fear that a trainee doctor from “uneducated Africa” may be your care giver. This is the genuine fear we needed to get people to do the one thing they ought to have done a long time ago: take care of themselves.
The poor folks can finally have a taste of the extravagance that was denied to them for so long.
What fun this promises to be.
Sailesh Ramcharan Westville