A new year provides an opportune time for individuals and organisations to take stock and look ahead to what the next 12 months will bring, writes Graham Craig, Medical Protection Society (MPS) business development director.
For MPS, 2024 will be the start of a new era, with Karen Miller soon taking over as CEO after the retirement of Simon Kayll, who was in the role for 12 years.
Miller – MPS’ first female CEO – has spent a large part of her career in South Africa and brings extensive experience from the insurance industry, including five years as CEO of ABSA General Insurance. Miller joins us in February and I look forward to working with her.
The experience she will bring to the leadership of MPS will be vital as we continue to expand our South African-based team of medico-legal and dento-legal experts and lawyers.
Her appointment and MPS’ continued expansion come as healthcare professionals in South Africa face numerous challenges.
Recent research by MPS shows that mental well-being for most of the profession is worse now than during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Staff shortages, high workloads, poor workplace conditions and even load shedding are taking their toll, while investigations launched by the Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA) continue to be drawn out over several years, causing pain and anguish for those involved.
In addition, uncertainty about the future direction of healthcare is causing tremendous concern for the profession.
We have seen the impact of these immense challenges on doctors, dentists and other healthcare professionals countrywide.
As my esteemed colleague, Dr Volker Hitzeroth, has previously pointed out, these challenges can have a negative impact on doctors’ mental well-being, which can jeopardise patient care.
It is no surprise, then, that there continues to be high demand for our services and our ability to support MPS members, and that there have been so many cases over the past 12 months, has been in no small part due to our discretionary indemnity approach.
As a non-profit, discretionary mutual organisation, our default position is to see how a member seeking assistance can be helped, not whether their claim fits the policy they signed up to.
It is this unique approach that has served MPS and its members in South Africa so well for the past 65 years. It means we can be flexible in determining the assistance we can provide when new issues arise (which may not have been known when, say, an insurance policy is taken out).
And in an ever-changing market such as South Africa, discretionary indemnity means we are perfectly positioned to offer help in unusual circumstances or where unique problems arise.
It is for this reason that in the year to October 2023, we agreed to provide assistance to 99% of all requests that met our basic qualifying criteria. These include that the person making the request was a member at the time of the incident, the request was within the scope of membership, and they were indemnified for the type of work or procedure that was the subject of the claim.
These results, and the support we have provided, have helped ensure our membership – of more than 33 000 in South Africa – remains strong.
Meanwhile, we continue to operate in a way that ensures the income we generate in South Africa stays in the country and is used to support members, continually improve the service we provide, and invest in our growth in the country.
All of this underscores just how much we value members in South Africa and that we are here for the long haul.
While MPS cannot predict the future or what challenges or opportunities may arise for the profession in the coming years, we can assure our members we will be there to support them.
Last year may have been a challenging one for many, but at MPS, we are proud that we were able to provide support to those who needed it, and look forward to doing the same in 2024.
See more MPS columns from MedicalBrief archives:
Load shedding a threat to patients' safety, say doctors
Survey highlights mental well-being of SA doctors
Alternative approaches could lessen HPCSA delays and mental stress