Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi has defended his department against accusations of healthcare system collapse, saying the global shortage of specialists was partly to blame for the current crisis, reports The Citizen.
His response comes after it emerged that Limpopo has only one neurologist, with patients allegedly having to wait until February 2026 for appointments.
EFF MP Mathibe Mohlala said the fact that people with deteriorating conditions had to wait more than eight months to see a specialist was a gross injustice, exposing the collapse of public healthcare for the poor, while other patients with money could seek immediate treatment in private hospitals.
He challenged Motsoaledi to justify this.
But although the Minister acknowledged the severe shortage, he flatly rejected characterisations of system failure.
He said neurologists are scarce not only in Limpopo but also in the rest of South Africa and globally, and that neurology was one of the skills on the scarce skills list gazetted by the Minister of Home Affairs in collaboration with the Ministry of Higher Education & Training and the National Economic Development and Labour Council.
However, while the global shortage didn’t help matters, the scale of the South African shortage is even worse.
“The total number of registered neurologists with the Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA) is 277 for the whole country, with only 15 of them employed in the public health sector as per the Persal system report for August 2025,” he revealed.
He vehemently rejected suggestions that the public healthcare system has failed, saying that millions of people receive treatment every day in state facilities serving 86% of the population.
Motsoaledi directed particularly pointed criticism at parliamentarians. “You probably would not know that because you have a very expensive medical aid – which is heavily subsidised by the state – that allows you to receive your treatment where very few people are able to,” he said.
NHI proposed as solution
Motsoaledi framed the National Health Insurance (NHI) as the solution.
“When we introduced the concept of … NHI, it is to deal with this gross disparity of healthcare where a selected minority gets the best of healthcare while the overwhelming majority is at the periphery of the system with very few health professionals,” he said.
To address the dire shortage of specialists in the country, provinces have been instructed to create registrar posts for specialists in training, he added.
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