Industry News

Hospital CEOs endorse common goals

13 June 2008

In Categories: Industry News

Speaking during a panel discussion at the Hospital Association of SA’s (Hasa) conference which ended today in Somerset West, private hospital executives re-iterated their commitment as a sector to contribute to the delivery of quality healthcare.

The participants of the panel included Medi-Clinic CEO, Koert Pretorius; Netcare CEO Richard Friedland; National Hospital Network CEO, Otto Wypkema and Kurt Worrall-Clare, Hasa CEO.

Wypkema said the industry would continue to stand united and engage in a spirit of co-operation.

Worrall-Clare said the health sector at large needed to acknowledge the overwhelming goodwill in the private sector: “We also need to bridge the negativity divide created by all the negative statements aimed at private hospitals,” he said. Aside from the quality services private hospitals continued to render regardless, the sector implemented a number of social initiatives which never appear to be acknowledged.

“What also seems to have been overlooked,” said Worrall-Clare, “is the R120 million (at a minimum) that we spent over the past three years on indigent care. And we also have
6 000 nurses currently in training around the country. In other words, private hospitals, at 20% of the nation’s beds, contribute 50% of nurse training.”
 
Among the challenges the panel discussed was the creation of partnerships between private and public sector hospitals. Said Pretorius: “We accept that the minister has had a difficult relationship with the private sector, particularly in trying to get public private partnerships off the ground. But what we have established is that the problems lie with the interpretation of Treasury’s protocols around PPPs and PPIs.”
The potential benefits the public sector could derive from outsourced private sector services in areas of extreme need were also discussed. Accepting that this would represent a paradigm shift from most private hospitals, it was generally agreed that it would be mutually beneficial for the public sector to buy into these services.

“I do believe we will be seeing private public partnerships taking shape quite soon now, especially after a very positive meeting we had with the Treasury only last week,” said Friedland.