Medical negligence claims may threaten the viability of SA’s proposed [b]National Health Insurance[/b] (NHI) scheme. A [s]Mail & Guardian[/s] report quotes Sylvester Chima from the University of KwaZulu-Natal's health sciences faculty as saying: ‘The cost of unregulated medical negligence claims may likely impact the NHI scheme, if funds needed to run the programme are diverted to pay for medical negligence claims.’ The Gauteng and KZN health departments each have claims against them worth billions. Chima said that high legal costs, including excessively high charges by lawyers and expert witnesses, ‘almost ruined’ the [b]UK’s National Health Service[/b] in the late 1990s. ‘South Africa may need a no-fault compensation scheme similar to the Road Accident Fund in order to limit costs,’ he said.
[link url=http://mg.co.za/article/2014-04-16-medical-negligence-claims-threaten-nhi]Full Mail & Guardian Online report[/link]