The South African Medical Association said it welcomed some of the proposals in the National Health Amendment Bill but says many aspects are still vague and require more detailed clarification.
SAMA vice- chairperson, Professor Mark Sonderup, was commenting after the Bill, along with the Medical Schemes Amendment Bill, were released last week by Health Minister, Dr. Aaron Motsoaledi.
Sonderup said while there were aspects of the two Bills that the SAMA welcomes, there is still too much detail that is lacking.
Referring to the Medical Schemes Amendment Bill, Professor Sonderup said there are some good suggestions being made that can benefit the consumer.
However, he says the problem is that there is no indication as to how the government will counter-balance these proposals.
"The amendments to the two bits of legislation to be introduced as part of the move towards government's intention to introduce a National Health Insurance has unfortunately left us with a lot more questions than answers. Certainly on the Medical Schemes Amendment Bill, certainly one has to acknowledge some reasonably good suggestions that are being made that may benefit the consumer."
"The problem is as to what they are going to be counter-balanced by which is where the questions remain. So, for example, on the face of it doing away with medical co-payments may seem like a very good thing, but the problem is what is that being counter-balanced by in terms of what government is regarding as a reasonable tariff for people in the private sector. And, that is where the big question is and creating lots of uncertainty and lots of doubt." said Sonderup.
He said SAMA is asking that these particular issues be dealt with expeditiously because it could be a significant negative factor in terms of internal and external brain draining.
Sonderup said with respect to NHI, there were "unfortunately many questions" and these included the feasibility and funding of the NHI process.
"Most importantly is that "our sense on the ground is that certainly those of our membership in the public sector have great difficulty sharing in a vision for a national health system from the vantage point of the public sector where there are so many issues and so many pressing concerns that people have great difficulty in seeing this vision when in most instances they just want the lift in their hospital to work and having a constant and steady drug supply for example."
"So, its very visionary, unfortunately, its a vision that many of us have great difficulty trying to actually appreciate given the very, very real and many challenging problems within the public healthcare sector at the moment," Sonderup said.
