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Friday, 18 October, 2024

FOCUS: MEDICAL SCHEMES

CMS probes medical aid AGM costs amid hefty premium hikes

Venilla Yoganathan - 0
Medical schemes, under fire for high premium increases for 2025 – which in most cases will be pegged above 10% – are also being probed by the Council for Medical Schemes (CMS) for exorbitant costs related to annual general meetings, with inquiries already launched into six schemes. Moneyweb reports that the CMS provided an update on its investigation launched in January 2024 into the potential factors contributing to the “extravagant costs” incurred by schemes in hosting annual general meetings. It has...
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NEWS UPDATE

Why SAMA is staying out of NHI negotiations

The SA Medical Association has ‘deliberately’ not partnered with Business Unity South Africa (Busa), and funders in their ongoing negotiations with President Cyril Ramaphosa and the Health Ministry over revising NHI legislation. The private sector protagonists, of which the SA Private Practitioners Forum (SAPPF) is a part, have put a combined legal challenge of the NHI in abeyance in the hope that the Government of National Unity will amend ‘deeply flawed’ sections of the NHI, as it did with the Basic Education Laws Amendment Bill. SAMA CEO Dr Mzulungile Nodikida told MedicalBrief that the reason for not partnering in the negotiations...

Minister tweaks community service posts to reduce shortfall

A shortfall in community service posts for doctors and several other disciplines will be adjusted by converting an over-supply in other fields, Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi has assured Parliament. While compulsory community service was originally intended to boost the number of healthcare professionals in under-serviced areas, the health system has struggled to absorb hundreds of graduates, who have been in limbo because they cannot work in their chosen profession or train to become specialists until they fulfil this obligation. In a written reply to questions by DA MP Karl le Roux, the Minister said there were enough funded posts for nine...

AG scathing about R150m health contract

A scathing report from the Auditor-General suggests that the National Department of Health (NDoH) appeared to deliberately evade legislation and regulations to grant a little-known company, Brainwave Projects SA, a contract for R122m. This was after Brainwave tried unsuccessfully to bill the department for earlier work done under its foreign technology partner via the Department of Communications & Digital Technology (DCDT). The NDoH contract was to provide satellite-based internet connections to 800 health facilities countrywide, reports amaBhungane in News24. In September last year, Brainwave was given the lion’s share of a three-year tender for this contract worth R153m. The department seemingly went to...

KwaZulu-Natal hospital disputes claim of patient neglect

Pietermaritzburg’s Northdale Hospital has denied ignoring the plight of a patient who arrived needing urgent treatment after suffering a seizure. The family of the patient (32) claimed staff ignored her for more than two hours after she had been taken to the hospital by ambulance. However, the KwaZulu-Natal Department of Health has strongly disputed the allegations, saying she was never denied care and that the family had left voluntarily before treatment could be completed, reports The Witness. The woman’s fiancé explained that she typically suffered from panic attacks and seizures but was generally able to recover without extended medical intervention. But on...

Eastern Cape hospital CEO racks up R574 000 in hotel bills

An Eastern Cape hospital CEO has been staying in hotels since 2022 – at a cost of more than half a million rands – because of threats against her life, claims the provincial Health Department, saying this was due to Nolubabalo Fatyela’s appointment to the post at Zithulele Hospital two years ago causing tension at the facility. News24 reports that in a parliamentary response to a DA question, Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi said the monthly hotel bills were, on average, R36 000. The total cost for 366 days was R574 026.55. “The OR Tambo district manager authorised the expenditure (delegated by DDG: clinical services),”...

KZN hospitals battle monkey menace

Monkeys are running riot in KwaZulu-Natal’s government hospitals, with suggestions to overcome the problem including that staff carry water guns to shoot the cunning varmints. But provincial Health Portfolio chairperson Dr Imran Keeka said this was impractical, and that it was not the function of healthcare workers and hospital staff to keep a watch out for “invasions” of the wards. Umlazi’s Prince Mshiyeni Memorial Hospital is implementing various measures aimed at keeping out the monkeys, according to Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi’s recent response to a parliamentary question by the EFF’s Dr Sophie Thembekwayo. He added that the same issue was previously reported...

SIU probes Eastern Cape Health contracts

A total of 19 contracts in the Eastern Cape Department of Health – ranging from cleaning services to meat deliveries – will undergo scrutiny by the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) after having been flagged for questionable procurement processes. President Cyril Ramaphosa signed a proclamation on 4 October for the probe, which will also focus on officials from the department who may have bypassed supply chain management (SCM) procedures between August 2022 and October 2024. The contracts include those for cleaning services at East London’s Duncan Village Day Hospital and the supply and delivery of meat to the Bhisho, Nkqubela and Grey...

Durban doctor leads the way with research on breast cancer trends

A recent study by Durban’s Dr Mpoi Makhetha on breast cancer patients in KwaZulu-Natal is believed to be the first of its kind in the country to report on demographic and genetic trends. The research was conducted over 11 years, and is also understood to be the first on the continent to investigate methylation signatures in breast tissues of African patients and their association with breast cancer development. DurbanLocal reports that the work, supervised by Professor Colleen Aldous, and which investigated the demographic and genetic influences on breast cancer development in the province, reported 60 mutations, including novel variants unique to...

Parliament staff’s medical tests ‘on hold’

Parliament has suspended the planned medical tests of its 1 200 support staff “pending further review and consultation”, it said, allowing for “thorough engagement to ensure a clear understanding of the purpose and importance of the assessments”, reports TimesLIVE. Employees were outraged after being instructed to undergo a range of intrusive medical tests, sparking union outrage and drawing stinging criticism from a top labour lawyer who warned of “privacy issues”. The tests ranged from urine analysis to gastrointestinal tract inspections and lung-function monitoring, and the plan came to light in an internal memo leaked to the Sunday Times. In addition, they were...

Tragedy sparks concern over medicinal cannabis oversight

A recent tragic case in Australia has cast a spotlight on the booming but little-policed cannabis industry now being accessed by hundreds of thousands of the country’s citizens, as is the case in South Africa. Long after Dominic McCabe committed suicide, packages kept being delivered to his house, reports Sydney Morning Herald, the small tubs in plain packaging being delivered month after month as his family grieved. His family asked that they stop, but they kept coming. His bank account was repeatedly debited, even though his family sent back the packages. Inside the packages was medicinal cannabis from Melbourne firm Dispensed. McCabe’s family...

GPs urged to test for Fragile X in women

Doctors have been urged to test patients for a genetic condition that is the most common inherited cause of learning disability, with experts saying there is a lack of awareness around Fragile X. About one in 250 women and one in 600 men are carriers of the abnormal gene that causes the condition, with female carriers at a higher risk of early menopause. The syndrome is caused by an alteration to a gene on the X chromosome, which disrupts the production of a protein needed for brain development. Women with the gene have a 50% chance of passing on the condition to...

Pepfar chief pushes for extension of programme

USAids relief programme head John Nkengasong is committed to persuading Congress to return to granting a five-year reauthorisation of the programme, he said in Botswana last week. Initiated by former Republican President George W Bush in 2003 to support countries hardest hit by the HIV/Aids pandemic, including South Africa, the President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief (Pepfar) remains the biggest foreign donor to SA’s HIV/Aids programmes, now providing more than $450m a year. For the past 20 years, Pepfar has had strong bipartisan support in the US Congress, which has routinely agreed to reauthorise funding on a five-year term. However, that changed...

Cholera warning for Gauteng after river sampling

Communities living along the Harts and Vaal Rivers in Gauteng have been warned that routine raw water sampling last month detected the presence of cholera bacteria at five sites. The Department of Water & Sanitation has advised people to avoid water in the areas of Wentzel Dam, Schweizer-Reneke, Christiana, Barkly West, Caravan Park and Douglas Weir. Spokesperson Wisane Mavasa said the communities – under the Dr Ruth Segomotsi Mompati, Francis Baard and Pixley ka Seme District Municipalities – and the water services authorities in the area have been requested to take extra care in the treatment process, disinfection and chlorination processes. He...

Gauteng Health expands HPV jabs to private schools

Vaccination against the human papillomavirus (HPV) will now be available to girls aged nine to 15 at private schools in the province, Gauteng Health said last week. The school vaccination campaign includes a basket of services under the Integrated School Health Programme (ISHP) health service package, and has been in place for a decade. The first phase of the HPV vaccination campaign between February and March saw 74 359 (84.6%) Grade 5 girls receiving the shots, with the Department close to meeting the intended target of 87 910 pupils in public primary and special schools. The second phase of the HPV vaccination...

Zealand, Boehringer get FDA ‘breakthrough’ status to treat MASH

Denmark’s Zealand Pharma and German partner Boehringer Ingelheim have won the US Food and Drug Administration’s Breakthrough Therapy status for the review of their experimental weight-loss drug for the treatment of a type of fatty liver disease. The companies said in a statement that the FDA’s speedier review will be for the use of drug candidate survodutide in non-cirrhotic metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis (MASH). Reuters reports that they will be starting two survodutide studies in the last of three stages of testing on humans to treat MASH and liver scarring.   Reuters article – Zealand, Boehringer win FDA breakthrough status to treat fatty liver (Open...

MEDICO-LEGAL

Family wins decade-long legal battle against Profmed

Nearly 10 years after being kicked off her medical aid and accused of not disclosing existing medical conditions, a Cape Town woman who took Profmed Medical Scheme all the way to the Constitutional Court emerged victorious. But Mignon Adelia Steyn was unable to celebrate her victory – she died last year of an unrelated illness, reports News24. “We were fortunate to be able to see this through all the way, showing the medical aids that you can’t just treat people the way you want because you have bigger guns,” her husband Adrian said. The Steyns’ battle with Profmed started in 2016 when,...

GSK pays millions for 80 000 Zantac lawsuits

British pharmaceutical company GSK has agreed to pay up to $2.2bn to settle 80 000 lawsuits in US courts claiming a discontinued version of heartburn drug Zantac caused cancer – the agreement with 10 plaintiffs’ law firms resolving about 93% of cases pending against the company nationwide. It also said it would pay $70m to settle a related whistle-blower lawsuit filed by a Connecticut laboratory. Reuters reports that GSK did not admit wrongdoing as part of the deal, as there was “no consistent or reliable evidence” that ranitidine, the drug’s active ingredient, increased the risk of cancer. However, it said the settlements...

Doctors win libel case against British tabloid

Britain’s Associated Newspapers Ltd has been forced to eat humble pie in a landmark case that will see it cough up for “substantial damages and costs” and apologise for defaming two doctors. In a David and Goliath battle, the doctors won their libel case against the tabloid Daily Mail and journalist Barney Calman in what the judge described as “the most significant piece of defamation litigation” he had seen in a very long time. On her blog, Maryanne Demasi, PhD, reports that the High Court found Calman and his publishers, Associated Newspapers Ltd, had falsely accused Malcolm Kendrick MD and Zoë Harcombe PhD of deliberately...

SOME RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS IN THE PAST WEEK

COVID-19

Risk of heart attacks, deaths, for three years after Covid – US study 


A large study has suggested that Covid-19 could be a powerful risk factor for heart attacks and strokes for as long as three years after an infection, according to the researchers. The paper, published in the Atherosclerosis, Thrombosis and Vascular Biology, relied on medical records from a quarter of a...

HAEMATOLOGY

Blood type tied to risk of early stroke – US study

Scientists have suggested that people with type A blood groups are at greater risk of having a stroke before they turn 60 than those with other blood types, but say further studies are needed to clarify this. The most familiar blood types are A and B, which can be present...

HARM REDUCTION

Never too late to quit smoking – and live longer, US study finds

A team of researchers has said that smokers who give up cigarettes, even at 75, could be boosting their life expectancy, and that it’s never too late to make healthy lifestyle choices. The estimates, led by a team from the University of Michigan School of Public Health, suggest that people...

NEUROLOGY

GLP-1 drugs may protect brain health – US review

Drugs like Wegovy and Ozempic (semaglutide) and Zepbound (tirzepatide) may offer benefits that go beyond weight loss in people with type 2 diabetes or obesity, suggests a recent review probing how they might also offer neuroprotective benefits. Because obesity can cause chronic inflammation, including inflammation in the brain, it can...

ONCOLOGY

Combination treatment slashes cervical cancer deaths by 40%

British researchers are hailing a new cervical cancer treatment as the biggest improvement in 20 years, cutting the risk of death by 40% and with patients remaining disease-free for 10 years. Combining chemotherapy and radiotherapy, it’s a major milestone for treatment of the disease, said Cancer Research UK. The Independent reports...

ABOUT US

MedicalBrief is Africa’s authoritative weekly digest of medical matters, both on the continent and around the world. It brings you a succinct summary of the latest developments, both in news and research, with links to the original material. Contact us: info@medicalbrief.co.za

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