Solidarity triumphs as central pillar of NHI collapses

Solidarity celebrates the Constitutional Court’s ruling today on the Certificate of Need and considers it a huge victory for healthcare practitioners and the broader public.

According to this ruling, parts of the National Health Act that provide for the so-called Certificate of Need have been declared unconstitutional. This Certificate of Need was one of the most important mechanisms by which the government wanted to exercise greater control over the health industry.

It would have increasingly given the state the power to determine which healthcare practitioners may practice where and which services may be provided.

This is in line with the appeal brought before the court by Solidarity and seven other applicants.

For healthcare practitioners, this ruling is a victory for freedom and professional independence, but also a win for every South African’s right to better healthcare.

Anton van der Bijl, Deputy Chief Executive of Solidarity, says this ruling is toppling one of the central pillars on which the government’s distorted and destructive healthcare plans are based.

“One of the NHI’s central pillars has collapsed today. The Certificate of Need was far more than merely an administrative instrument. It was an instrument of centralisation and state control.

“The government wanted to move health practitioners around like its own pawns on a chessboard to cover up its own failures. Today the court said that South Africans are not state property and professionals are not pawns of the government,” says Van der Bijl.

Solidarity consistently argued that quality healthcare cannot be expanded through coercion and bureaucratic control.

Van der Bijl says the ruling can therefore be regarded as a major breakthrough, particularly for sought-after professionals in the healthcare sector.

“No government can force doctors, dentists, nurses and other healthcare practitioners through regulations to create quality healthcare where the government itself has failed,” he says.

Solidarity further emphasises that the ruling has greater significance for the fight against the NHI and serves as strong opposition to the constitutionality of state centralisation, which is a core principle of the NHI.

Solidarity will continue its broader legal battle against the NHI.