Privatise Compensation Fund's medical aid division

The Democratic Alliance has called for a private administrator to take over the medical aid division of the Compensation Fund after research it conducted showed more and more doctors were turning away injured workers because of non-payment of bills.

In a statement, the DA said its research has shown that across the country doctors and medical practitioners are turning patients away due to the Fund's failure to settle their claims. It said the Compensation Fund has become the primary reason why thousands of South Africans are denied healthcare and medical attention.

The DA conducted its research by asking the South African Medical Association (SAMA), the National Employers' Association of South Africa (NEASA), Independent Practitioners' Association Foundation (IPAF) and Qualicare to do surveys among its members. The surveys showed that medical practitioners waited for up to a decade for claims to be settled. In a survey conducted by SAMA in Gauteng, 65 percent of medical practitioners claimed they were affected by the non-payment of compensation fund bills. The medical practitioners were owed an average of close to R900 000 per doctor based in Gauteng.

The DA said these figures are astronomical, and could easily result in small medical practices having to shut their doors - resulting in jobs losses and less opportunity for medical care for the public. NEASA surveyed about 640 of its members. Close to 40 percent of the respondents claimed they were denied treatment by a doctor as a result of the case being Compensation Fund related.

The DA said that what makes this matter of even greater concern is that every South African employee pays for the cover the Fund is mandated to provide. Every month a deduction is taken off every employee's salary and directed into the Fund's purse. Yet injured workers do not receive the cover they are made to pay for. The party will present its research, along with a demand that the medical aid division of the Compensation Fund be privatised, to Labour Minister Mildred Oliphant in the coming days.

Africa News Agency, 18 May 2015