Fix Public Health First before Hitting on Private Sector: DA

Politicians and role-players in the private healthcare industry have urged health minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, to get her own house in order before tampering with the private health sector.

This follows the minister’s warning last week that she was considering new legislation to address ‘the inequities between private and public health care’, accusing the private sector of becoming increasingly unaffordable ‘even for those with medical insurance’.

Ironically, her renewed attack on the private sector coincided with the release of an independent report on private hospital costs, which refuted allegations that price increases in the sector were excessive.

The research commissioned by the Hospital Association of SA (HASA) in 2005 and conducted by economist, Mike Schussler, was released at the association’s conference in Stellenbosch last week.

It showed that private hospitals have managed to keep inflation below 6% for the second consecutive year. At 5.6%, it was significantly lower than the ‘acceptable’ average price increase of 7,9% set by the Council for Medical Schemes at the beginning of this year. Compared with developing countries such as the US, Australia and New Zealand, the report showed that only European countries had a lower hospital inflation rate than SA. The only other emerging country mentioned in the research, Turkey, recorded hospital inflation of 9%.

The research also found that an increasing number of patients without medical insurance are choosing to pay out of pocket to be treated in private hospitals rather than going to a state facility. Between 2002 and 2005, the number of private hospital admissions rose by 24.5% while there was a 3.2% decrease in the number of patients admitted to state facilities.

Due to better treatment and care in private hospitals, the average length of stay is also shorter than in public hospitals making treatment in private facilities cheaper on average than in the public sector, Schussler said.

In his reaction to Tshabalala-Msimang’s statements, DA health spokesperson, Gareth Morgan, pointed out that the money spent on private hospitals and doctors was ‘not the government's to control’ but was the disposable income of people who chose to spend it in the private sector and who already subsidised the public sector through their taxes.

He added that private health care was not only used by people with medical insurance, but also by poor people who did not want the frustrations and poor quality of care associated with public hospitals and clinics.

According to Morgan, the government is largely to blame for the lack of competition and the perceived high costs in the private sector because it continues to deny licences to new players to build new hospitals and has failed to enable the public sector to compete.

"With greater numbers of people joining medical schemes every day, why not allow for more private facilities?" Morgan said.

It was ironic that Tshabalala-Msimang attacked the private sector when her department 'cannot even run an efficient and caring public health care sector,' he said. It was further ironic that the private sector had to come to the rescue when staff abandoned their posts during the public service strike, Morgan added.

"Perhaps once these problems are solved, the minister will be in a better situation to pass judgement over the private sector," Morgan told Sapa.

Meanwhile, the minister’s husband, ANC treasurer, Mendi Msimang, has defended his wife’s decision to return to work less than three months after her liver transplant.

Msimang told the Daily News that he was confident that his wife was fit enough to work and had responded quickly to medication. He said critics had to understand that people reacted differently to medication and his wife was one of those who responded ‘quicker’.

Msimang also dismissed media reports that he had intervened and asked President Thabo Mbeki not to drop his wife from his cabinet. "I don't involve myself in government business; the president has the right to appoint and dismiss as he pleases. It's his prerogative," he said.