Portfolio committee marks four key health areas

BUSINESS REPORT
February 2, 2010

By SLINDILE KHANYILE

The portfolio committee on health has four priorities this year: monitoring the private health care sector closely, pushing for the National Health Insurance (NHI), regulating traditional healers and ensuring South Africa is ready for health emergencies during the World Cup.

Chairman Bev Goqwana said yesterday that the committee would conduct an oversight study to understand what was happening in the private health care sector.

"It claims to be best and that the public health care sector is collapsing," he said. "We need to look into their workings, what patients they are handling, what medicines they are using and quality management. We must also understand at which point they start to move patients to public hospitals.

"The first thing will be private hospitals. Unfortunately last year was too short because we are a new committee and we could not get an appointment with the hospitals.

"We will see them this year, and the medical aid companies," said Goqwana.

Questions have been raised over the years about how the private health care sector operates and particular concerns have been expressed about the way it charges for its services.

Goqwana said the committee was expecting the Department of Health to deliver a policy document on the proposed NHI next month. The NHI is a policy strategy aimed at providing universal cover for every citizen within five years.


"We are trying to make sure that it succeeds. We are listening to quite a few people from other countries who are sharing how they have done it, but South Africa is unique in that there are huge inequities in our health system and the NHI must address that."

The NHI implementation plan is expected to be ready by July.

On traditional healers, Goqwana said it was important to finalise the regulations that would govern the Traditional Health Practitioners Act, which recognises the healers as health professionals.

"Regulating this industry will help us to differentiate proper healers from those people who spring up from nowhere and claim to cure Aids and those who kill people because they want some body parts for muti," said Goqwana.

The act was signed by former president Thabo Mbeki four years ago. It makes it possible for healers to issue medical certificates and to claim from medical aid schemes. It prohibits the use of human tissue and advertisements.

Goqwana said the committee would check with provinces to ensure that everyone was ready for World Cup emergencies "so we don't become the laughing stock of the world".

BUSINESS REPORT
February 2, 2010

By SLINDILE KHANYILE