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BL Premium reports that SA’s largest association of medical specialists has started legal action against the National Health Insurance (NHI) Act, so adding to the mounting pressure on President Cyril Ramaphosa to reconsider the controversial legislation.
The SA Private Practitioners Forum (SAPPF) filed its application in the Pretoria High Court in on 1 October and asked the court to review and set aside the President’s decision to sign the NHI Act into law, and to declare it invalid. This is the third legal attack on the Act, which has already been challenged by trade union Solidarity and the Board of Healthcare Funders, a medical scheme industry association. Several other organisations representing doctors, medical schemes and private hospitals have indicated that they are preparing legal action, while organised business, represented by Business Unity SA, is lobbying hard for Ramaphosa to review the Act. The SAPPF represents about 3,000 specialists and 1,500 other healthcare professionals, including general practitioners. “It is important that people know that healthcare professionals are concerned,” said SAPPF CEO Simon Strachan. It is the SAPPF’s argument that in signing the Act, the President failed to discharge his constitutional duties. Since numerous stakeholders and parliament’s own legal adviser had raised concerns about the constitutionality of the NHI Bill when it was before parliament, the President must have been aware of these shortcomings, and signing it was “irrational, for an ulterior purpose, or tainted by the consideration of irrelevant factors,” claimed Strachan in his founding affidavit.
- Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Tamar Kahn at BusinessLive (subscriber access only)
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