Some health activists have estimated that the controversial National Health Insurance (NHI) could cost the fiscus anything close to a trillion rand to fully implement.

The legislation was signed into law almost a week ago, in a bid to achieve universal healthcare for all.

But critics are concerned about the quality of the legislation, the processes followed during its adoption and government’s capacity to implement it.

Health activist Dr Aslam Dasoo doesn’t believe this is the solution to the country’s ailing public healthcare sector.

“By the time the NHI gets implemented, it will probably be R700 billion in total that will have to be raised, put into a fund and the way they are going to do is by eliminating all medical aid schemes and having a single player, run by the government through an SOE model.”

Healthcare equity analyst at Investec, Letlotlo Lenake, said the state of the country’s healthcare had a knock-on effect on the economy as well.

“Do investors want to put money into potential countries that have poor healthcare services and especially for industries that have a high reliance on your staff or the potential of your staff and what happens to your staff that isn’t able to be active, what happens to them from an absenteeism perspective or a productivity perspective? It doesn’t send the right signals and is largely negative.”