By Ruth Rehbock
SOUTH Africa currently faces a major crisis in its healthcare sector. With a population of around 60 million recent stats says there is only 0.39 doctors for every thousand people in the country. This compared to places like Brazil and Mexico, where they often have more than two doctors per thousand individuals.
Craig Comrie, CEO of Profmed medical scheme, says that costs in the sector are based on curative, hospital-based services. “Mostly costs entail emergency healthcare or care for those in significant and severe illness stages of their lives,” he adds.
In addition, the price of healthcare rises above inflation however costs can’t be kept low because people need care more often and the burden of disease is now affecting a growing number of younger people. In the private sector medical scheme costs increase every year which average to be about three or four per cent above inflation. These costs are driven by technology, fewer skills and the burden of more people utilising healthcare more. “The way to reduce healthcare costs is that you need to keep people healthier for longer,” says Comrie.
“In the public sector, the lack of doctors and of suitable healthcare facilities does not mean the healthcare budget grows, it means that the queues grow and keep growing, so finding a doctor or a nurse becomes very difficult,” he adds.
Up until now the Department of Health had not increased their expenditure in the last few years. “The budget gets divided among the nine provinces, and so there needs to be careful management so the money is used efficiently and effectively in the healthcare sector.
“For one thing, there aren’t enough medical graduates to adequately staff hospitals in both the private and public arenas, an issue that I feel could be tackled by involving the private sector. Hospital groups, for example, could be given the freedom to train and place medical professionals to fill the rising demand.”
Another major issue is that many young graduates are not being placed in hospitals or other environments to complete their community service. Government has to find enough money to fund as many placements of young graduates as is necessary.
Keeping healthcare costs low in SA means Government and the private sector must take adequate measures to keep medical professionals in the country. SAMA, who look after 12 000 of the many doctors, made a statement that if the National Health Insurance becomes a reality, 40 per cent of doctors said they would leave the country.
It’s imperative that we train enough medical personnel to meet the needs of a large and growing population as the fewer doctors there are, the more they can charge for their services privately. While in the public sector fewer means the public does not get access to the healthcare it needs.
Although SA has to acknowledge that the global market is hungry for newly trained nurses and doctors, particularly since the Covid pandemic ravaged many countries (significant numbers of professionals took early retirement while others were lost to the virus itself), we have enough resources, technology and know-how, to vastly improve our healthcare system at home.
For further information contact: craigc@profmed.co.za
