Racial bias against black medical practitioners ‘reflects fissures of an unresolved past’
The section 59 independent investigation into complaints by black medical practitioners investigated for submitting improper claims to medical-aid schemes has found that they suffered systematic racial discrimination from three major players in the field, reflecting the persistent schisms of the country’s political past.
“Our constitution regards the form of unfairness that we have found to exist as constituting unfair racial discrimantion,” the panel, headed by advocate Tembeka Ngcukaitobi, concluded its interim report released on Tuesday.
Far-reaching and serious findings
The report was released shortly after the Government Employees Medical Scheme (Gems) failed in the Pretoria high court to secure an urgent court order preventing the panel from publishing its interim findings. The other two medical schemes cited in the report are Discovery and Medscheme.
The Government Employees Medical Scheme (Gems) and the Board of Healthcare Funders have urgently gone to court on Sunday to interdict the public release of an interim report about racial discrimination against doctors by medical schemes.
SA reacts to receiving 1 million doses of Covid-19 vaccine in January
By Viwe Ndongeni-Ntlebi
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South Africans have mixed emotions on Health Minister Dr Zweli Mkhize’s announcement that the country will get one million doses of Covid-19 vaccine by this month, and 500 000 doses in February.
Some welcomed the news on social media, while others voiced their fears and concerns about the vaccine.
However, the minister expressed his joy with the “breakthrough.“
Should we wait for vaccine to be tweeked to be more effective for SA variant. Takes few weeks. nads (@n ad777) January 7, 2021
“We are happy that the SII/ Astra Zeneca vaccine has already been approved by various regulators and is being rolled out in other countries. Therefore, as part of expediting the regulatory process, SAHPRA is applying reliance on that regulatory work,” said Mkhize.
The biggest medical aid schemes in South Africa in 2020
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The Council for Medical Schemes (CMS) has published its 2019/20 annual report, detailing the membership numbers and financial status of South Africa’s open and restricted medical aid schemes.
The CMS regulated 78 registered medical schemes in 2019, a decrease from 79 as a result of a merger between Resolution Health Medical Scheme and Spectramed to form Health Squared Medical Scheme.
These 78 medical schemes comprised of 20 open schemes and 58 restricted schemes. Open schemes accounted for 55.38% of the medical scheme beneficiaries.
These schemes have 4.05 million registered members, serving a total of 8.94 million beneficiaries.
Principal members covered an average of 1.20 dependents, decreasing from 1.32 in 2018. The gender distribution of members was also almost equal in all schemes, although the average age for females was higher with 34.1 versus 31.9 in male members.
Covid-19 vaccine and the road to recovery
15 Dec 2020
This story is sponsored
This webinar was sponsored by the Government Employees Medical Scheme (GEMS). Guest speakers included Dr Stan Moloabi, Principal Officer at GEMS; Prof Shabir Madhi, Professor of Vaccinology: University of Witwatersrand (Wits); Director: MRC Vaccines and Infectious Diseases Analytics Research Unit (VIDA); DST/NRF South African Research Chair: Vaccine Preventable Diseases and Co-director African Leadership in Vaccinology Expertise (ALIVE); and Prof Marietjie Venter, Head: Zoonotic, Arbo and Respiratory Virus Programme, Professor, Department Medical Virology, University of Pretoria (UP). It was moderated by Marcelle Gordon, Anchor on TV news channel eNCA.