The health minister devoted much of a recent speech to making scathing criticisms of private hospitals and clinics.
His remarks went so far as to appear to blame the private sector for the lack of universal health care in the country. This is a disservice to the public interest.
It is wrong to criticise the private sector for the lack of universal healthcare in the country. Deficiencies in the public system and the lack of efficiency and investment prevalent in most government controlled hospitals, are the fault and responsibility of government, not the private sector.
Private healthcare providers and entrepreneurs have accomplished much to raise the standard and scope of health services available in the country. Their popularity is down to their ability to deliver good services. Attacking or undermining their effectiveness, will not achieve anything to deliver healthcare to people who cannot afford private care, or to raise standards in government controlled hospitals.
Clearly, with much of the population currently unable to access good healthcare from either the public or private sector, the government needs to do more to deliver accessible, basic health services to the population of large. This is the area, along with improving standards in public hospitals, where the minister should have focused his attention.
Instead he chose to make hectoring criticisms of private hospitals. This was not constructive and comes across as a smokescreen for the government’s failure to root out systemic inefficiencies and problems in public hospitals.
