‘MOUs should have been in place’ for SA to charge SADC countries for citizens’ healthcare

Although the South African Medical Association (Sama) has welcomed the Gauteng High Court’s ruling that upheld rights of all pregnant women, and children under six, to be provided with free healthcare at public hospitals, the organisation says South Africa should have been proactive in getting Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries to pay for their citizens in the country.

“It’s important for children and pregnant women to be given free healthcare, we need to live by that – it’s a constitutional right,” Sama’s Professor Ames Dhai told Newzroom Afrika on Wednesday evening.

Healthcare for all

The issue of free healthcare for foreign nationals in South Africa has long been a bone of contention, with those at the forefront of the debate highlighting that the country’s healthcare system is already on its knees.

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While Sama advocates for healthcare for all, the organisation conceded that the country’s shrinking economy and poor health services would make this difficult to implement.

Dhai said the South African government should have made arrangements with other SADC countries to avoid situations where their citizens are turned away from hospitals due to non-payment of healthcare services.

“Government should have been proactive in this regard. We are in a situation with poor healthcare services that we cannot manage to extend our services further,” said Dhai.

“However, there ought to have been, much earlier than the situation arose, agreements between the SADC countries and South Africa, to ensure that any citizen of those countries that were here, whether as an asylum seeker or undocumented migrant, there ought to have been MOUs in place for the health department to charge for these invoices to relevant countries.

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“If we have our ducks in a row and proper management, it’s not going to be difficult. We can sit back and say it’s going to be difficult now but that’s because we have inefficient management, and we’re riddled in corruption, as we’re all aware. A digital database would make it possible to bill accordingly, but while the foreign nationals are in our country and need healthcare, we need to defend that right, it’s inhumane to turn them away.”

Backlog of surgical procedures

Limpopo Health MEC Dr Phophi Ramathuba last year also called on SADC countries to pay medical expenses for their citizens who receive treatment in South Africa.

At the time, the MEC was responding to the backlash she received following a video of her “explaining” to a foreign national patient why she should pay for the medical procedure she had just received at a public hospital.

Ramathuba lamented the slow progress in one of the province’s initiative, in which she recruits health specialists to clear the surgical backlog in hospitals.

Since its inception, Ramathuba said she was shocked to find the backlog of the surgical procedures had not improved.

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“What we have noted, why we’re not even making a dent on this surgical backlog is because there has been abuse of this project by illegal foreign nationals. I need to give that understanding to say we’re not doing anything to our surgical backlog because people are abusing this system,” Ramathuba told SABC at the time.

“When they hear that the MEC is coming to this district with specialist care, they leave their country, enter South Africa illegally and come to our hospitals. The doctors who operate on them, for ethical reasons, even though the constitution will cover the doctors, don’t refuse to operate on them. But that specific South African citizen who we did this project for is unable to get operated on because they are still flooding our initiative.”

READ MORE: ‘I stand by my words’: Limpopo Health MEC says SADC countries must pay for their citizens