JOIN
DONATE

HEALTHCARE

Our Vision

A South Africa in which our population is a healthy one: our people have access to nutritious diets and live healthy lifestyles, the impact of communicable and non-communicable diseases is minimised, and everyone has access to affordable, quality healthcare provided by well-resourced and professional medical professionals at highly efficient healthcare institutions.

In this South Africa, healthcare is not only reactive, but the health of our population is proactively managed to improve the quality of life our people.

ActionSA's Core Principles

  • Our approach to public health must be proactive, rather than only focusing on providing reactionary care to our people. Establishing a healthy society through proper nutrition and the reduction of harmful practices is the first step towards creating a nation that can achieve its full potential.
  • Healthcare inequality must urgently be addressed, but the National Health Insurance (NHI) proposal is ill-conceived albeit well-intentioned and threatens to destabilise the provision of healthcare in South Africa. We must rather focus on improving the performance of our public health institutions and reduce the need for healthcare by creating a healthier population.
  • Our public health system is severely over-burdened and under-resourced and is under-performing as a result. We must transform our public healthcare institutions to ensure that the national and provincial Departments of Health, hospitals, clinics, and other healthcare facilities are managed by qualified professionals and have sufficient resources to provide quality services to patients.

Action to Fix South Africa

  • Entrench decision-making processes that are driven by best available scientific research and data, ensure that adequately trained and informed medical professionals ultimately approve public health interventions.
  • Expand health-related content in the education curriculum to ensure that children learn about making healthy lifestyle decisions.
  • Increase the number of adequately trained community healthcare workers to assist in grass-roots data collection, community education and health promotion.
  • Withdraw all private medical aid contributions to public office holders and elected representatives, and require Ministers and Parliamentarians to use only public healthcare.
  • Institute a broad programme of institutional reform at the National Department of Health and provincial health departments to improve the administration of South Africa’s healthcare system.
  • Invest in expanding the capacity of South Africa’s public healthcare system by building more hospitals and clinics and training and appointing more medical professionals.
  • Review the private healthcare insurance industry to ensure that more people have access to affordable comprehensive medical insurance and to mitigate the profit-driven aspects of healthcare.
  • Conduct more engagements and research on alternative ways to achieve the goal of improving equitable access to quality healthcare.

ActionSA Introduces Bill to Ensure Public Representatives Use Public Healthcare

ActionSA has gazetted the Parliamentary and Provincial Medical Aid Scheme (PARMED) Amendment Bill — the first step in ending the double standards that shield politicians from South Africa’s broken public healthcare system.

For decades, Members of Parliament, Ministers, and Judges have been protected by an exclusive medical aid scheme, PARMED, while millions of South Africans are left to endure collapsing and underfunded public hospitals and clinics.

Public representatives will be empowered through this Bill to lead by example in the journey toward Universal Health Coverage, by choosing their own medical cover rather than being forced into a system of entrenched privilege that separates them from the everyday realities of the majority of South Africans.

The Bill makes PARMED membership voluntary, meaning public representatives will no longer be forced into a special scheme that sets them apart from the people they serve. They will now have to choose — either pay for private cover, or face the same public healthcare system as ordinary South Africans.

This is about accountability. When politicians are made to stand in the same queues, wait for the same doctors, and experience the same conditions as citizens, they will finally have the political will to fix the system.

This Bill marks the first step in ActionSA’s mission to encourage all public representatives to make use of public healthcare.

Email your support of the bill by 28 September 2025 to speaker@parliament.gov.za and copied to parliament@actionsa.org.za