Hospital plan cause for concern

At first glance, the Gauteng government's plan to require private hospitals to use their empty ward beds to accommodate patients from overcrowded state hospitals looks eminently sensible.

Saturday Star, 19 September 2015

There are just 16 000 government hospital beds to cater for the needs of a province with a population of 12-million. Government hospitals run with a bed occupancy rate of 100 percent, while the private sector utilises between 60 and 75 percent of its capacity. Gauteng health MEC Qedani Mahlangu said that private hospitals which are required to accept patients from state hospitals will be paid by the government. The plan to maximise state and private medical resources has been mooted in the government's National Health Insurance scheme, but there has so far been no agreement on how private groups will be paid. It is, on the one hand, a good thing that the country's resources - wherever they are - are going to be mobilised for the benefit of the people.

However, it is also true that these private facilities exist in the first place because many people believe state hospitals are inadequate, The MEC's plan is an admission that this is still the case. We are concerned that this represents a move to hand over more and more state responsibility to the private sector. And, effectively, another admission that the state is not doing its job in providing care and infrastructure for its citizens. We have already seen a huge growth in private education (and even in private-sector support to state schools), to say nothing of the privatisation of taxpayer-funded infrastructure, like our roads.

We also worry that there is a huge opportunity for corruption: who gets to say which government patient gets treated where, for example. This whole issue needs to be handled very carefully.