Spotlight: Dear Mr President, we need to talk about our health system, by Lucy, Jane, Uta & Helen

Four of South Africa’s top public health systems academics last month sent a letter to President Cyril Ramaphosa as the country grapples with finding solutions for our struggling health services.

Four of South Africa’s top public health systems academics last month sent a letter to President Cyril Ramaphosa as the country grapples with finding solutions for our struggling health services. By Lucy Gilson, Jane Goudge, Uta Lehmann and Helen Schneider.

The four professors, Lucy Gilson from the University of Cape Town, Jane Goudge of the University of the Witwatersrand, Uta Lehmann and Helen Schneider from the University of the Western Cape state upfront their commitment to supporting the development of a health system that promotes health and wider social benefits, and contributes to redressing the inequities in our society.

They believe the 2019 elections provide a window of opportunity to institute actions that could, over the longer term, develop the health system as such a mechanism of societal transformation.

They make important points that should serve as reference for the ongoing and critical needed debates taking place as government considers various pieces of legislation and recommendations to fix our health system.

We urge you to support actions now that will provide time and space for greater learning about how to manage the process of change moving forward. How we support change in the health system is a necessary componenet of delivering that change.