In a move to improve the management of hospitals, the Health Department will this weekend advertise 92 vacant CEO positions.

Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi said no one will be fired and the positions were advertised merely to ensure that CEOs were at the appropriate level of deputy director-general and had a health services background.

"We have done an analysis to look at the suitability of our hospital CEOs and we realised that CEOs with no health background were struggling," he said.

He said these positions were either occupied by people who did not have a health background or were lower in seniority than a deputy director-general.

"We have people at level 8 [clerk] who are hospital CEOs," he said.

Motsoaledi said that at no central hospital was there a CEO of deputy director-general rank, and at many hospitals the position was occupied by an acting CEO.

The appointment of CEOs was the responsibility of health MECs, but he said it was now government policy for the minister to work with MECs to appoint CEOs.

Motsoaledi also announced that the R1-billion budgeted for the pilot introduction of national health insurance would be used to lay a foundation for the project.

He said some of the 24 new sections of the National Health Act, which will come into force next month, would "assist us to prepare the foundation for implementing national health insurance. These are sections relating to governance structures".