Cosatu concerned about the state of healthcare in the country

Lusanda Bill
20 March 2015

The Congress of South African Trade Union has made submissions to the Competition Commission which is currently conducting an inquiry into private healthcare coast in the country.

Cosatu Spokesperson Patrick Craven said the costs are completely exorbitant. He said the reason why the National Health Insurance Scheme is taking so long is because it is being sabotage by the private health sector, who are making huge profits and will suffer if NHI works.

Craven said while the Competition Commission has a specific mandate to check if there is any collusion between the private healthcare companies, we hope that they will look more broadly at the state of our healthcare system and find out why this is despite the fact that we spend more of healthcare then many other countries.

“The outcomes in terms of life expectancy and getting rid of various diseases is extremely poor and this is some of the reasons we think our healthcare system is so bad” Craven added.