Rights of mental health patients in New Zealand

• South Africa’s National Health Insurance (NHI) bill has passed the first hurdle towards becoming law, getting the country closer to its vision of achieving universal access to healthcare.
• The NHI bill, which has been passed by the national assembly, is the manifestation of this provision.
• Universal access to healthcare is an ideal which supposes that everyone should have the same access to healthcare.
• The bill will have massive consequences, so it should be rejected and not enacted in its current form.

The vision

• Those who have the financial resources, or medical insurance, use private healthcare practitioners and facilities.
• Those who do not have these resources use public practitioners and the facilities provided and paid for by the state.
• The current healthcare system has not sufficiently catered for good quality healthcare for all.
• This system has precluded the poor or those without medical aid from using a large number of health professionals, services and facilities.

Grey areas

• The law must indicate with reasonable certainty to those who are bound by it what is required of them so that they may regulate their conduct accordingly.
• The current version of the bill is uncertain in the following key areas:
• As the bill expressly aims to cover the costs of certain healthcare services, it is reasonable to expect that these services be clearly set out.
• How can we follow the law when we do not know what it is?
• Without this certainty, the bill is vague and so it cannot be seen as good law.

Ideal and practice

• Universal access to healthcare and the ideal of a national system of health insurance are important concepts which relate directly to core human rights, and as such are noble and necessary.
• However, it’s often the case that an ideal falls short in practice.