The South African Medical Association (SAMA) has suspended all 13 members of its Cape Western branch council for three years for ‘open revolt’ and using SAMA funds to obtain legal opinion, Chris Bateman reports for MedicalBrief.
In a ‘notice of sanction for breach of the SAMA code of conduct,’ served yesterday, a SAMA disciplinary panel demands a public apology from the members within three months, failing which their membership will be terminated for 10 years.
The letter says a disciplinary inquiry found "no mitigating circumstances" and that the 13 have shown no remorse, having acted in "open revolt" against the SAMA board of directors whose authority they no longer recognised and whose "clear instructions" they were "determined to thwart".
The 13 believe they ‘have nothing to feel remorse for,' and are taking legal advice on lodging an appeal.
Meanwhile, the SAMA board has appealed to the High Court against two binding rulings the Cape Western branch council secured against them questioning the board's legitimacy and constitution. Should the board lose this, they face having to call a General Council meeting of SAMA within 20 days to re-elect an executive.
The impact of this protracted internecine fight is that SAMA in the Western Cape stands to be rendered rudderless for another three years. The 13 branch council members have been on "precautionary suspension' for the past two years and banned from entering the local SAMA building in Pinelands. The branch council’s administrative staff were threatened with dismissal should they talk to any of the doctors involved.
SAMA, with just over 12 000 members out of 35 000 registered doctors, is the largest doctors’ organisation in the country.
At the heart of the dispute is a complaint by the association’s Cape Western branch council, which regards the SAMA board as illegally constituted. This view has been upheld by the Companies & Intellectual Property Commission (CIPC) and the Companies Tribunal. In turn, the board convened a disciplinary hearing in February of all 13 of the Cape Western branch council members, finding them guilty on five counts of improper use of SAMA funds.
The Cape Western branch spent R201 250 securing legal opinion on the constitution of the board, subsequently launching its successful formal challenges.
Two years ago, upon hearing of the ‘illegitimate’ spending, the board put all branch council members on “precautionary suspension”. Those branch council members serving on SAMA board committees were also suspended from such committees. The board followed this up by laying a complaint of embezzlement with the police in Pretoria.
One veteran SAMA source observed: “This is about shutting down the whistle-blowers – the rest is all detail.” Another said the charges and counter charges represent “a battle for the soul of SAMA” and of the democratic representation of members. Others claim the SAMA executives are “ANC acolytes.”
The Cape Western members also say they have been refused sight of financial books detailing SAMA’s spending of R4m on a gym in Umtata and R16m worth of rental guarantees as part of a SAMA Fitness subsidiary. The Sama Fitness website says a string of fitness centres is envisaged “in the hope that they could be used as a recruitment and retention mechanism for members of the shareholder (Sama).”
The board said in a statement last month that Sama Fitness was not set up by Sama NPC (not-for-profit company). Instead, Sama Fitness was a 100% subsidiary of Sama Cape Property Holdings (Pty) Ltd, a profit-generating company that invested in Sama Fitness. No Sama NPC funds (membership fees) were used to support Sama Cape Property Holdings in setting up Sama Fitness, it says.
Those opposing the ‘fitness’ deals say the subsidiaries were set up with member funds (with SAMA CEO Mzulungile Nodikida and Chairperson Mvuyisi Mzukwa as directors). The board had changed its modus operandi from members electing it (and all its committees) through the triannual SAMA council meeting to the board having sole control, with the exception of an online annual general meeting.
Sama’s membership subsequently dropped. In 2013, it had 6 000 private sector doctors and this year just over 4 000. In the public sector it had 5 500 doctors in 2013 which is down to 2 500 this year. The rest of the professional groupings are split into the breakaway South African Medical Trade Union, with about 8 000 members, and the South African Private Practitioners Forum (3 000 specialists, plus 3 500 others, including GPs and ancillary health-care practitioners). Other doctor cohorts include the South African Academy of Family Physicians (525 paid-up members), several independent practitioners’ associations, specialty societies and managed care outfits.
The latest development follows the resignation of the editor of the SA Medical Journal, Dr Bridget Farham, last month after the board took exception to an editorial she wrote explaining why she declined to publish readers’ letters attacking Israel’s invasion of Palestine without mentioning the original lethal Hamas attack. Farham wrote that there was ‘no moral equivalence’
See more from MedicalBrief archives:
Commission rules for Cape Western branch against SAMA ‘head office’
SAMA appoints mediator to address internal tussles
Beginning of the end for SAMA as Western Cape branch suspended?