Medical aid Act is a crime – expert

The Medical Schemes Act is a crime against humanity as it was based on an apartheid system which separated the rich from the poor, said outgoing president of the Health Professions Council of SA Dr Kgosi Letlape.

Letlape called on parliament to consider scrapping the Act as it only privatised health services which should be available to all.

Letlape said standards of healthcare in public facilities during apartheid were better than the current private sector.

“It’s not that healthcare was better under apartheid. It’s that apartheid in health, which was never dismantled, never died but has been enhanced. It was not created by the new government. They might not have understood what they were given but now that they understand, they must do the right thing of dismantling.”

Health in the country was instead privatised by the Medical Schemes Act, which separated the rich from the poor, he said.

“The medical schemes act is a crime against humanity and all of us are complicit in promoting that crime… Medical aids are not private. Even if you can’t afford it you can’t get out,” he said.

The considered National Health Insurance (NHI) was a solution but on condition the assets and members of medical aid schemes were transferred to it.

“They must scrap and replace it with the NHI and all assets of medical schemes become assets of the NHI. There can be no concurrency between the NHI and the Act,” he said.

But the act was not causing inequality, said SA Medical Association national chair Dr Angelique Coetzee. Public healthcare should be improved to service those who could not afford private services.

“It is not because of the private sector that the public sector is not giving good services but if you can afford some services, you have the right to buy it, she said. But the Act infringed the constitutional right to access healthcare services,” Letlape said.

“People will argue ‘it is my money’. Hogwash. It’s an act of parliament. And it is contrary to the provisions of our constitution.”

– rorisangk@citizen.co.za

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