Truth about doctors fleeing South Africa
Life Healthcare CEO Peter Wharton-Hood said it was untrue that specialists and doctors are leaving South Africa due to the looming National Health Insurance (NHI).
President Cyril Ramaphosa signed the NHI Bill into law just before the May 2024 national elections.
The Bill was widely criticised by the private sector as unaffordable and detrimental to South Africa’s healthcare system.
South Africa’s largest association of medical specialists, the South African Private Practitioners Forum (SAPPF), launched legal action against the NHI Act.
Despite the widespread criticism, the government doubled down on the NHI, with Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi saying it was moving ahead despite opposition.
There are many reports that the government’s stubbornness around NHI has resulted in thousands of doctors and other healthcare workers leaving South Africa.
Canadian immigration consultant Nicholas Avramis said they had seen a 50% spike in interest from doctors and nurses who want to immigrate to Canada.
Concerningly, he noted this has mostly come from newly graduated doctors who had just completed their community service, and the NHI Bill is to blame.
“All of the doctors who come to us note the NHI. They see it as an existential threat to their livelihood,” said Avramis.
Sakeliga warned that if the NHI Act was implemented, many professionals would exit healthcare, retire early, or emigrate.
The Solidarity Research Institute (SRI) found that 47% of doctors would start the emigration process as soon as NHI was accepted.
19% of doctors said they had already begun the process, while 0% of medical practitioners are optimistic about NHI.
Business Unity South Africa (BUSA) has also expressed concern that the NHI will chase medical practitioners out of the country.
Doctors don’t trust the system and do not want to comply with what they believe to be an ill-thought-out attempt to hide corruption behind the veneer of universal healthcare.
Life Healthcare CEO Peter Wharton-Hood shares new information

Life Healthcare CEO Peter Wharton-Hood said it was untrue that specialists are leaving South Africa and shared data on what was really happening.
He told Biznews that the narrative around NHI was misguided and created an overly negative perception.
He added that the numerous media reports that doctors and specialists are flooding out of South Africa are inaccurate.
“You hear people talking around the braai on a Saturday, claiming that all the specialists and doctors are leaving South Africa. That’s simply not true,” he said.
He gave the example of a recent 12-month period where Life Healthcare saw only seven specialists leave.
These departures included numerous reasons, including death, retirement, moving to a competitor, or immigration.
Of the seven specialist doctors who left Life Healthcare, three returned within nine months.
“So, this idea that all the doctors are fleeing South Africa is false,” Wharton-Hood told Biznews. “However, rumours like that persist and don’t help the sector’s confidence.”
However, he admitted that South Africa’s healthcare sector faces significant challenges, including the lack of training posts for newly qualified doctors.
Earlier this month, the South African Medical Association raised concerns about at least 1,800 junior doctors who remain jobless.
Public Interest SA called this “both a national disgrace and an indictment of the inefficiencies within our healthcare system”.
“Such developments are symptomatic of a public healthcare system teetering on the brink of collapse,” the group added.
Daily Maverick also reported that young doctors seeking to specialise face significant challenges in the local healthcare system.
It said there are ‘waiting lists to work for free’ in South Africa’s public healthcare system as accessing registrar training posts becomes increasingly difficult.
Wharton-Hood said the world is facing a shortage of doctors, and South Africa is no exception. “Yet we’re not employing the doctors we do have,” he said.