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Fiscal crunch means NHI projects on back-burner — Motsoaledi
National Health Insurance (NHI) projects will be put on the back-burner as the Health Department has to reprioritise its budget, Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi...
CMS ban on low-cost med schemes faces legal challenge
Discovery Health may turn to litigation after the Final Board of Appeals of the Council for Medical Schemes (CMS) banned two of its primary...
GEMS opposition to merging with other schemes
The principal officer of the Government Employees Medical Scheme (GEMS) has warned against the state’s plans to merge it with other schemes for public...
ANC lets two disgraced former Health MECs off the hook
ANC Gauteng leaders Qedani Mahlangu and Brian Hlongwa will remain on the party's provincial executive committee (PEC), the ANC said, despite their respective roles...
Labour Department closes down Health Department's Pretoria HQ
The national Health Department has closed its Pretoria offices, reports The Times. The Labour Department ordered the Health Department on Monday to evacuate the...
Legal limbo for low-cost med schemes hurts the less well-off
Low-cost medical plans can offer workers in the private sector access to much-needed basic health care, but despite employers being willing to sponsor this...
Medical schemes' spending on benefits up 6% to R161bn
Overall medical schemes spent R160.6bn on healthcare benefits in 2017, up 6.04% from the R151.2bn spent in 2016. Fin24 reports that this is according...
High unemployment keeps SA's medical scheme numbers static
The number of medical-scheme beneficiaries remained virtually unchanged for the past seven years with high unemployment and lack of government intervention said to be...
SANC delays on private nursing colleges threaten NHI plans
The implementation of National Health Insurance will demand many more nurses, a major concern because of the delay in South African Nursing Council approvals for private...
Global mental health report condemns Life Esidimeni tragedy
Exactly a year after the start of the arbitration hearings that sought justice for the families of the dead Life Esidimeni patients, the esteemed Lancet...
Commission's private healthcare data flawed — lawyer
The Competition Commission’s preliminary report into SA's private healthcare industry has come under fire at the Hospital Association’s annual conference, with a lawyer describing...
Jobs summit to consider Netcare proposal for 50,000 new nurses
A proposal to train and employ 50,000 new nurses will be one of the flagship projects on the table at the government's Jobs Summit...
Medical aid increases will be 'well above inflation'
Medical aid increases well above inflation are expected to hit members in 2019. Business Tech reports that according to data from medical aid companies,...
Outbreak that killed 9 babies was 'kept secret'
Nine babies died at a Johannesburg hospital from necrotising enterocolitis only a few months before a klebsiella outbreak killed six new-borns in a Vosloorus...
Parliament wants intervention over SA medical students in Cuba and Russia
A multiparty delegation from Parliament is currently in Cuba and has unanimously agreed that intervention is required to address the concerns of SA...
CMS wants single medical scheme for public servants
The Council for Medical Schemes is proposing consolidation of all medical schemes for public servants into the Government Employees Medical Scheme (GEMS) in line...
Report on 'places for sale' at UKZN remains secret
The forensic report into the alleged ‘places for sale’ scandal at the University of KwaZulu-Natal's medical school will remain under wraps for now.
News24 reports...
Claims data tracks SA's cancer explosion
Cancer causes more deaths in South Africa than HIV/Aids, tuberculosis and malaria combined, with the average of cost of a cancer case up 17%...
BHF research paints worrying picture of exiting doctors
Older public sector doctors are leaving to practice privately but are not staying too long, instead opting out of medicine entirely before the age...
Drug prices, not patients, fuelling cost spiral — Mediscor review
The annual Mediscor review says that growing expenditure on medicines is largely driven by higher prices, not because people are sicker and using more products,...
Survey finds large number of doctors considering leaving SA
A survey by the union Solidarity’s Research Institute found that more than 80% of healthcare practitioners believe that the government’s planned National Health Insurance scheme...
SA med students vow not to return to Russian ‘sangoma hut’
A group of 53 medical students from Mpumalanga being funded by the provincial government to study in Russia have vowed not to return to...
Substantial number of community service doctors still unemployed — SAMA
At a time when South Africa's hospitals are faced with critical staff shortages which impacts on the health-care system, some intern and community service...
Wits team claims breakthrough in Alzheimer's research
A breakthrough by a team of researchers at the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) could see patients with Alzheimer’s using a nasal spray to...
Med schemes want Health Dept to reject drug price increases
Medical schemes have appealed to the national Health Department to reject pharmaceutical manufacturers’ request for an extra price increase for medicines, arguing they are...
NHI: Leave it to me, Ramaphosa tells SA's healthcare leaders
President Cyril Ramaphosa has told helalthcare industry leaders that he would personally be overseeing the implementation of the National Health Insurance scheme and that...
IRR calls on South Africans to oppose NHI
The Institute of Race Relations (IRR) has invited South Africans to endorse a submission opposing the National Health Insurance (NHI).
The IRR says: “All South...
In 7 years, Discovery cancer diagnoses increase 45%
Cancer diagnoses among Discovery Health Medical Scheme (DHMS) members – the country’s largest medical insurance scheme – increased by 45% between 2011 and 2017, says...
Motsoaledi: Criminals are clogging SA's mental health system
Criminals were putting extreme pressure on the already strained mental-health system in South Africa. The Times reports that this is according to Minister of...
SA's medicines regulator hobbled by protestor shutdown
Picketing protestors are preventing pharmaceutical companies from lodging submissions for the registration of medicines and special permits that allow critically ill patients to be treated...
Contraceptive roulette at SA's state clinics
State clinics and healthcare facilities around South Africa continue to experience a shortage of injectable contraceptives, despite the Health Department claiming it had “enough”...
Parliamentary committee appalled by KZN Health 'disaster' clinic
Parliament’s portfolio committee on health says it is appalled by conditions at a clinic in Umlazi in KwaZulu-Natal which it described as a “disaster”...
Traditional surgeons criticise Customary Initiation Bill
Traditional doctors expressed strong reservations about the Customary Initiation Bill at the first public hearings in Port Elizabeth.
SABC News reports that traditional surgeons raised...
85 KZN Health staff 'off sick' for 5,007 days in five months
A written parliamentary reply to questions by the Democratic Alliance (DA) has revealed that 85 staff members within KwaZulu-Natal Health have amassed a staggering 5,007...
Medical aid scheme ‘a slush fund’ for curator
The trustees of Samwumed, a medical scheme for unionised municipal workers, are contesting the curatorship order on the scheme, while some of its members...
Life Esidimeni pay-outs expected to top R1bn
The Gauteng government might end up paying more than R1bn to compensate families of the victims of the Life Esidimeni tragedy, the province says
The...
SA science research output significantly improved — Stellenbosch report
South Africa's science performance in terms of publication output, international collaboration and citation impact over the past 17 years has improved significantly, finds a Stellenbosch...
#FeesMustFall students destroyed Mayosi, family tells mourners
Political fallout around the suicide of the dean of the University of Cape Town's (UCT's) faculty of Health Sciences, Professor Bongani Mayosi, continued at...
International experts highlight ‘significant weakness’ in SA Tobacco Bill
In a last-minute submission on the SA Tobacco Bill, international academics argue that the Bill does not sufficiently differentiate between nicotine products of widely...
Med schemes not delivering value for money, say members
Consumers feel they get less value for money from medical schemes than they do with other financial services, such as short-term insurance. Business Day...