What chance has our Medical System got?

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I don’t mean to be negative, but if a first-world country, like America, has a failing healthcare system, I cannot see how a developing country like South Africa, where fraud and corruption are the order of the day, can have a successful one. According to our government, 2012 will introduce the national health care plan. I shudder just at the thought. Just last week we heard that the Gauteng Department of Health owes suppliers more than R300 million. Until this debt is paid, State hospitals in Gauteng will not be supplied with life-saving and diagnostic devices. http://www.iol.co.za/news/south-africa/gauteng/state-hospitals-could-feel-suppliers-wrath-1.1185519

Apart from the financial debacle, the amount of medical errors by hospital staff together with the uncaring and unsympathetic way patients are treated is just appalling. I am sure that I am not the only one that wonders whether the national health care plan is just another way for the government to rake in taxes, which too will disappear in the seemingly endless pit of corruption and fraud. Just this morning IOL reported that the Gauteng Department of Health and Social Development appointed contractors who neither had the qualifications nor the competence to build hospitals in the province, leading to millions in losses. http://www.iol.co.za/news/south-africa/gauteng/health-department-wastes-millions-1.1188298

Let me remind you that this is your and my money being squandered and mismanaged by just another incompetent government-controlled department. Nobody has been held responsible or disciplined for this, so of course, the mismanagement will continue.

Look after your health!

Looking at the above reports, how much faith have you got in the medical health care system? Granted, this incompetence has not reached all hospitals and hopefully, it never will, however, these private hospitals will not be covered by the national medical scheme, and you will have to contribute towards a private medical aid to have access to good medical care. So what this means is if you have money, you can have good quality medical care, if not, sit in a queue and wait. I do have to wonder if our Mr. President or his numerous wives will visit a Gauteng hospital.

Things happen for a reason and the fiasco within the medical care system is no different. Perhaps the fact that good health care will become unaffordable to the middle-class person, may become the motivation behind people taking care and becoming more responsible for their own health, whether this is mental, spiritual, or physical in nature. I can only perceive this as a positive change. Good doctors will become what they were supposed to be; teachers, which will teach you how to get back to health and stay that way, without taking chronic medication. Call me a dreamer, but if a failing medical system forces people to become more health-conscious…bring it on!

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