The interrogation and intimidation faced by black healthcare practitioners in the country were worse than what was done during apartheid.
Dr Prudence Buthelezi, a health practitioner and co-founder of the National Health Care Professionals Association (NHCPA), said this on Thursday as she recounted the experiences she and her colleagues faced over a seven-year period.
The racial profiling were finally given credence by the Section 59 Investigation Panel’s report released this week.
“Today, we say victory is ours. We are the conquerers,” Buthelezi told a virtual and physical audience of fellow practitioners gathered on Thursday, as they reflected on the report findings.
Scheming against black doctors: Blacklisted black MD feels vindicated Lindile Sifile > By Lindile Sifile - 20 January 2021 - 07:34
A triumphant Dr Nonkosi Ngumbela, who has been blacklisted for almost three years from servicing patients from Medscheme, says she is vindicated after three medical aid schemes were found to have racially profiled black practitioners.
“I’m excited that the truth is finally out but I still have deep anger at how my name had been dragged through the mud by criminals who ran rampant, destroying the lives of many black doctors. Some of my colleagues’ children were so looking forward to following in their parents’ footsteps but have since chosen different career paths because of the frustrations their parents went through,” said Ngumbela, 61, a general practitioner of more than 30 years from East London in the Eastern Cape.
Board of Healthcare Funders to work with panel probing discrimination 20 January 2021 - 10:17 Image: 123RF/SAMSONOVS
The Board of Healthcare Funders (BHF) says its members have no agenda to intentionally discriminate against any medical professional.
The board said it has a zero-tolerance for any form of discrimination.
It was responding to the release on Tuesday of an interim report by a panel convened by the Council for Medical Schemes (CMS) to investigate allegations made by a number of healthcare professionals that they were being treated unfairly by medical aid schemes based on race and ethnicity.
The report found that between 2012 and 2019, black practitioners were more likely to be found to have committed fraud, waste and abuse than their white counterparts by Discovery, Medscheme and the Government Employees Medical Scheme (Gems).
Medical schemes may be hard-pressed to convince a court that the way they are dealing with fraud, waste and abuse by medical practitioners does not constitute unfair racial discrimination.