[PICTURES] Minister of Health visits New Year's babies

Health Minister, Zweli Mkhize has paid a visit to King Dinuzulu Hospital in Kwazulu-Natal (KZN) to welcome the first babies born at the dawn of the decade.

The Minister, accompanied by a delegation of government officials, presented gifts and provided some mothers with their babies' birth certificates.

Meanwhile,  Gauteng recorded 531 babies born at public hospitals on New Year's day.

While addressing the media, Mkhize added that the implementation of controversial National Health Insurance (NHI) will ultimately assist women in public post-natal wards.

“We are starting a new decade in which we will be instituting decisive actions in the implementation of NHI. When it is fully implemented, there will be no distinction between public and private hospitals,” said Mkhize.

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“This will be the norm from here on, where mothers can walk out of hospital with the birth certificate in hand and not have to go to Home Affairs.”

The NHI has seen its first specialist clinic opening in Eastern Cape in September.

The NHI Bill was introduced in Parliament last year and is being implemented in phases with government aiming for it to be fully functional by 2026.