Under the NHI [National Health Insurance] the rich will subsidise the poor, the young will subsidise the old, the healthy will subsidise the sick, the urban will subsidise the rural.”

This is how South Africa’s health minister Aaron Motsoaledi explained what will happen once his bill becomes law.

“South Africa is an outlier," he said. "We have privatised healthcare even more than the US. And yet we fight if any other service is about to be privatised.”

The bill, which was gazetted on Thursday, proposes the establishment of a NHI Fund which will buy services from both public and private medical providers.

Dr Motsoaledi said he consulted with former CEOs of the UK’s National Health Service (NHS), which was established in 1948, before he unveiled the bill.

But not everyone in the country is in favour of the scheme.

Katleho Mothudi, from the Board of Healthcare Funders, the body representing more than 70% of medical insurance companies, says “it is still not clear where the money will come from”.

He also raised concerns about levels of quality dropping.

Interested parties have three months to comment. The scheme will be fully implemented by 2026, the minister said.