Race report ‘hijacked’ for NHI agenda, critics say

Cape Town – The Institute of Race Relations (IRR) has reportedly accused Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi of using a report on racial bias in medical aid fraud investigations to advance his National Health Insurance (NHI) agenda.

The report, led by Advocate Tembeka Ngcukaitobi, found that black medical practitioners were unfairly targeted by medical aid schemes in fraud, waste, and abuse (FWA) investigations.

The inquiry examined medical scheme practices spanning from 2012 to June 2019, Sowetan Live reported.

The probe was initiated following public complaints made in May 2019 by the National Health Care Professionals Association and Solutionist Thinkers, who alleged that medical schemes and their administrators were unfairly withholding payments and disproportionately targeting black medical practitioners.

In light of these allegations, the Council for Medical Schemes appointed an independent panel to conduct a thorough investigation.

“The evidence of the risk ratios before us showed racial discrimination to black service providers by the schemes. Let me repeat this, we were not a court, we did not adjudicate individual complaints, we did not run a trial and make findings about unfair discrimination in terms of Section 9 or the Pepuda Act, we only considered the facts and the facts lead us to one conclusion that the evidence of the risk ratios before us showed racial discrimination to black service providers by the schemes,” SABC News quoted Ngcukaitobi as saying.

According to The Citizen, while Motsoaledi swiftly endorsed the report, Hermann Pretorious, head of Strategic Communications at the IRR, cast doubt on the minister’s intentions behind his support.

IRR and the Board of Healthcare Funders (BHF), challenged the methodology, claiming it used unscientific racial classification and failed to consider variables like patient volume.

“His [Motsoaledi ] opposition to ‘two different systems’ of healthcare in South Africa is a naked attempt to justify a single system – the NHI,” the report quoted Pretorious as saying.

“The obvious weaponisation of this report and its findings is a blatant and cynical ploy by Minister Motsoaledi to pay little more than lip service to the disgraceful failures of public healthcare under his watch whilst vilifying the most operational and successful part of healthcare in the country.”

The BHF warned the findings could aid fraud and distort accountability efforts, while Discovery Health also rejected claims of racial profiling, citing flawed data analysis.

Meanwhile, the South African Medical Association (SAMA) backed the report, saying it confirmed longstanding racial targeting and called for urgent reforms.

Compiled by Betha Madhomu