Eric Klug @eklug

Approve draft regulation R3337. South Africa has waited long enough. Add your voice. Sign the Petition by 10 December!

70 billion rand skimmed! The same comrades are ready to pillage any NHI allocations. #ANCout #mythofNHI #SundayTimesZA

Any surprise? : The health department had not responded to Business Day’s request for comment at the time of publication. #ANCout #BusinessDayZA

After months of lobbying from the pharmaceutical industry, the health department announced on September 30 that the single exit price (SEP) for medicines sold in the private sector would be increased by 2.88% from October 1. The department said the move was intended to provide some temporary relief to the pharmaceutical sector, which it said faced numerous cost pressures, including “the effect of geopolitical tensions”. #BusinessDayZA

The health minister’s decision to grant pharmaceutical companies a second price increase this year has sent a shock wave through the medical scheme industry, which is now scrambling to manage an additional R1bn in medicine expenditure next year. #BusinessDayZA

@CityPowerJhb You give no reason for the outage. Why no estimate of power return? Is anybody actually working on it now? You definitely have enough experience with Cydna and it’s failure for reliable service to know!

Endangering patient outcomes: The NHLS is facing a ballooning debt pile from the provinces it provides services to. Parliament heard in May 2026 that outstanding debt to the NHLS had climbed to R11.3bn, with a large chunk of this coming from South Africa’s two most populous provinces, Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal. KwaZulu-Natal owed the NHLS nearly R4bn at the end of March, while Gauteng’s debt amounted to R3.3bn. #SundayTimesZA #mythofNHI

Great planning! -Business Times can today report that the current contract for small and medium haematology labs at the country’s biggest hospitals — including Chris Hani Baragwanath, Charlotte Maxeke, Dr George Mukhari, Tshwane District, Groote Schuur, Red Cross Children’s, Nelson Mandela and Inkosi Albert Luthuli — has lapsed as funds in the blanket purchase agreement (BPA) had run out. #SundayTimesZA #mythofNHI

Another health crisis - would laughable if not so tragic: The backbone of South Africa’s public health laboratory system, the National Health Laboratory Service (NHLS), is scrambling to secure new blood-testing providers after running out of funds for pathology services, seemingly having shifted scarce resources from one priority to another. - corruption and mismanagement - ANC hallmarks - #SundayTimesZA #mythofNHI #ANCout

This is obscene: The hospital’s CEO, Gaborone Seleke, informed health department officials on September 4 about the severe strain the facility faces in providing health-care services in the Ditsobotla District. “The hospital is unable to admit patients and has to check if neighbouring hospitals such as Lehurutshe do not have spare capacity ... In some cases patients lose their lives while waiting for beds somewhere else,” said Seleke. - NHI would just provide the tenderpreneurs a huge pot to steal and plunder!! The cruelty of public health and it’s not a financial resource issue- it’s incompetence and corruption - an ANC led speciality. #SundzyTimesZA #ANCout #mythofNHI

Four years after a North West company was awarded a R28m North West department of health contract to build a new 120-bed facility at General De La Rey Hospital in Lichtenburg, the deteriorating hospital remains untouched. Nobody knows why the department paid the R21m, which included supervision of construction despite no construction having taken place. MIB is favoured by certain officials, and payments are channelled to this company,” said the insider. - I haven’t heard the Minister of Health on this matter! #SundayTimesZA #mythofNHI

It’s obscene - and public health is in crisis and all one hears about is the promised land “ NHI” - OBSCENE. #SundayTimesZA #mythofNHI

Everyone misses the real point - sort out Public Health now - stop corruption; get professionals to run hospitals; start actually CARING . Public Health is not a financial income issue - it’s a gross incompetence/ corruption issue #fixpublichealth #mythofNHI #ANCout

Discovery estimates that replacing today’s private healthcare spending through taxation would require taxes paid by this relatively small taxpayer base to increase by more than 50%. “You’re asking people to pay much more in taxes, and then that gets redistributed. What they get back is obviously a much smaller proportion,” Harris said. If those taxpayers still needed to buy supplementary cover because the NHI package did not meet all their healthcare needs, “the net cost is huge”. “It’s a big ask.” #DiscoveryHealth #SAMA #mythofNHI

Professor Roseanne Harris: One of the biggest problems with the NHI debate, Harris argued, is that it often treats two very different sources of healthcare funding as though they are interchangeable. One is public healthcare, funded through taxes. The other is private healthcare, funded through medical scheme contributions paid from households’ after-tax income. “They’re often conveniently lumped together,” she said. That creates the impression that the money South Africans already spend on medical schemes can simply be redirected into a single NHI Fund. Medical scheme contributions, she said, are private household spending, not public revenue. “The only way for that last block to become part of any kind of public health financing is for the taxes to be raised,” she said. #DiscoveryHealth #SAMA #mythofNHI

Discovery Health assesment : Although medical scheme members make up only about 14% of the population, they contribute roughly 74% of personal income tax. Discovery’s analysis also suggests they are the only group that pays more in tax than it receives back in tax-funded healthcare benefits, with those benefits amounting to only about 10% of the tax they contribute. #SAMA #mythofNHI

I analyzed the current #ESC2026 Heart Failure Guidelines 2026 for conflicts of interest. My conclusion: guideline development should demand maximum independence. Industry can and should support research—but it must never determine recommendations. #GuidelineIndependence

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When assault rifles and grenade launchers are stolen from military bases, isn’t that an indication of a defence department in a shambles? As I indicated, it’s not something that normally happens. Is it something that should ever have happened? It should never have happened 🫡

How safe are your military armouries and ammunition depots? I can say they are indeed safe. So how come R4 assault rifles and grenade launchers are being stolen? That was just one incident that happened. Why does one hear about guns being stolen from soldiers at your bases?

A Farce: These are military bases we’re talking about. Is nobody on guard duty? Soldiers are able to remove whoever illegally occupies our properties, but this needs to be done in compliance with the law. We are a law-abiding people.