South African Communist Party

Statement on permanent employment of community health care workers

Friday, 28 November 2025: - The South African Communist Party (SACP) extends its congratulations to the National Health and Allied Workers Union (NEHAWU) for securing permanent employment for 27,000 community health care workers by the government of the Republic of South Africa through the department of health.

These workers have endured precarious employment, ongoing job insecurity, and exploitation in various forms by their employer for over a decade.

It is our understanding as the SACP that despite this victory the health care unions, with NEHAWU playing a leading role, continue to negotiate with the Department of Health to absorb additional health care workers into the system. Upon successful negotiation, the health care system will employ over 40,000 community health care workers on a permanent basis, a remarkable feat of organisation.

Having negotiated and led the struggle of these workers for over a decade, NEHAWU has secured a victory whose impact extends beyond its members and workers in the health sector. Given the critical role that community health care workers play in improving the lives of the beneficiaries of public health services, this victory has a broader societal impact. Community health care workers are a critical component and indeed a backbone to realising the vision and objectives of the National Health Insurance (NHI), our overarching transformational health strategy aimed at overhauling the existing health care system in South Africa.

As health care practitioners at the grassroots level, community health care workers are the foundation of a revitalised and sustainable health care system that prioritises the interests of the working class. Under the leadership of COSATU as a federation of trade unions, workers in the health sector are now required to diligently protect this important victory to ensure its full implementation and expand its application in line with the vision of a mass-oriented healthcare system.

This victory is not an inexplicable fortune or random generosity of the government but is a direct consequence of struggles by workers consciously acting to improve their own conditions and it is thus owed to the sacrifice of the workers and steady leadership of their union.

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ISSUED BY THE SOUTH AFRICAN COMMUNIST PARTY,
FOUNDED IN 1921 AS THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF SOUTH AFRICA.