Motsoaledi conceded that public healthcare in the country was severely constrained and said dealing with the problem would have to extend beyond the health department.

"So I said, 'President take over this issue if you want this system to ever happen'. If you want to call it that … it will be a Ramaphosa-care," Motsoaledi said.

He said the World Health Organisation has called for heads of state to be directly involved in universal healthcare.

Motsoaledi said the war-room, headed by Ramaphosa's health and social issues adviser, Professor Olive Shisana, was an effort to make NHI a reality in the sixth administration.

When delivering the ANC's election manifesto in Durban in January, Ramaphosa reiterated the party’s commitment to accelerating the implementation of the long-delayed NHI bill, the finalisation of legislation and creation of a publicly-funded National Health Insurance Fund.

This week, during the campaign trail in Germiston, Ramaphosa repeated his commitment to delivering quality universal healthcare for all.

He previously said "whether people like it or not, NHI will be a reality".

In unpacking the party's manifesto on Sunday, Motsoaledi said it was unusual that from the collective 8.7% of the country’s GDP that was spent on healthcare, 4.5% of that was spent on only 16% of the population while 4.2% of the GDP had to be distributed for healthcare for the remainder of 84% of citizens.

Motsoaledi said part of NHI will see changing of 12 healthcare laws- including the Health Care Act of 2003.

He said a big problem in the law was that the minister did not have the power on who got appointed to critical positions and how money was allocated by provinces.

Motsoaledi said the law as it stood only allowed him as a minister to intervene in provinces when things had gone wrong and said he wanted the law to change so that the minister could intervene preemptively.

"There should be a system where we can preempt things from going wrong as the national department of health," he said.