President Cyril Ramaphosa receiving the Covid-19 vaccine at Khayelitsha District Hospital in Cape Town on February 17 2021. Picture: SUNDAY TIMES/ESA ALEXANDER
The 2021 Budget Review has implications far beyond the single financial year ahead, and correctly prioritising the budget is of paramount importance. There are difficult choices to be made. The Supplementary Budget Review 2020 noted that a “total of R21.5bn has been reprioritised to public health services”, bringing the health sector’s share of consolidated expenditure by function to 12.1% . This reprioritisation was meant to help prepare the health sector for “a rising number of cases, including expanding capacity and ensuring personnel are protected”.
Covid-19 has likely reinforced the idea of a national health system, although the current crisis means priorities and timing of the NHI rollout, as well as the form and level of cover are likely to shift compared to a pre-coronavirus world view. Furthermore, the pandemic and subsequent economic lockdowns have had a devastating effect on employment. SA’s unemployment rate increased to a record high of 30.8% in the third quarter of 2020, following a record total 2.2-million jobs lost between April and June 2020. The largest job losses recorded in a single quarter before this was in the third quarter of 2009 , in the wake of the global financial crisis.