Health departments private info denial 'misleading' - DA

Cape Town - The health department's denial that it is improperly collecting private information from medical aid members is "highly misleading", the DA said on Tuesday.

"The DA challenges the department to make public the exact methodology used to collect this information and whether this methodology complies with the provisions of the Protection of Personal Information Act (POPI)," DA health spokesperson Wilmot James said in a statement.

James said the party would lay a complaint against the Council for Medical Schemes (CMS) with the Information Regulator.

He said it was possible to create a health plan without "encroaching" on private information of citizens.

James claimed on Monday that the department was "unlawfully" trying to collect information of all medical aid members through the CMS, to set up a "beneficiary registry".

Ministry spokesperson Joe Maila told News24 that the registry's purpose was to ensure that the public sector could identify private medical scheme members when their scheme needed to be billed for services rendered in the public sector.

It was not to collect private information for research purposes, he said.