FACT SHEET FUNDING THE RIGHT TO HEALTH

The document analyzes the disparity between South Africa's private and public healthcare systems, noting that while public spending has increased since 1994, austerity measures and underfunding have led to severe staffing shortages and declining standards. It highlights a significant gap in per capita spending and a surge in medico-legal claims, ultimately calling for tax reform and the doubling of public health expenditure by 2025 to support the National Health Insurance (NHI) transition.

• South Africa maintains a dual healthcare system with extreme resource disparity: while only 17% of the population has private medical insurance, private sector spending is 4.2% of GDP, nearly equal to the public sector's 4.4%. This results in a vast gap in per capita spending, with the private sector spending R17,225 per person in 2018/19 compared to R4,480 in the public sector.
• Public health funding has been constrained by austerity policies, leaving consolidated spending below the 15% target set by the 2001 Abuja Declaration. These constraints have led to a rise in unfunded commitments and unpaid bills, with health departments accounting for 57% of all unpaid government bills in 2017/18.
• The public health system faces a critical human resource crisis characterized by widespread vacancies and staffing shortages. In 2017, Limpopo province alone had 10,000 vacant posts, representing 25% of its healthcare workforce, while the Treatment Action Campaign reported 38,217 unfilled posts nationwide in May 2018.
• Chronic underfunding and staffing shortages have contributed to service failures and a dramatic increase in medico-legal claims against provincial health departments, which rose from R28.6 billion in 2015 to R80.4 billion in 2018.

APA

Institute for Economic Justice (2019). FACT SHEET FUNDING THE RIGHT TO HEALTH. https://iej.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/IEJfactsheet-Funding-the-Right-to-Health_4.pdf

Chicago

Institute for Economic Justice. FACT SHEET FUNDING THE RIGHT TO HEALTH. 2019. https://iej.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/IEJfactsheet-Funding-the-Right-to-Health_4.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=Institute for Economic Justice |title=FACT SHEET FUNDING THE RIGHT TO HEALTH |date=2019 |url=https://iej.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/IEJfactsheet-Funding-the-Right-to-Health_4.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{instituteforeconomicjustice2019fact, author = {{Institute for Economic Justice}}, title = {{FACT SHEET FUNDING THE RIGHT TO HEALTH}}, institution = {Institute for Economic Justice}, year = {2019}, url = {https://iej.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/IEJfactsheet-Funding-the-Right-to-Health_4.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }