With an end to the National State of Disaster, a labour federation says it’s now time to build the National Health Insurance (NHI) scheme.

Cosatu’s Parliamentary Coordinator Matthew Parks says that the country should not be found wanting again. A number of restrictions had to be imposed on the country in order to protect the health system so it could deal with the Covid-19 pandemic. It had to also bring more health workers onboard.

Parks says government must reinforce and invest in healthcare institutions and address the real crisis of a shortage of health workers, supplies and infrastructure.

The NHI which has been in the pipeline for years is a health financing system that is designed to pool funds to provide access to universal healthcare.