Industry News

Private hospitals must become part of policy base

13 June 2008

In Categories: Industry News

Resource-rich private hospitals have a vital role to play in challenging the huge inequities still inherent in the country’s health care services.

“We have to be honest with ourselves and accept that despite some of the great progress that has been made in the public sector since 1994, we are still living in two South Africa’s when it comes to health services – one of have’s and one of have not’s,” Netcare CEO, Richard Friedland said at the Hospital Association of SA’s (Hasa’s) annual congress in Somerset West today.

“It’s now time for us to take off our private hospitals hats and look at the bigger picture; these enormous inequities threaten the sustainability of our society let alone the hospitals we run and the facilities we offer,” said Friedland.

“We are absolutely at the cross-roads now post-Polokwane. If we look at the private hospital sector back in 1994, we were not part of that policy debate. We, of our own accord, were marginalised and stood aside as policy was being debated. I believe we now have to be part of the evolving policy debate in this country as we look at what will maintain sustainability and how to achieve the vertical equity required in order to remove the inequity between the have’s and have not’s.”

Four particular areas that needed to be addressed urgently and in which the sector could play a definitive role said Friedland were skills shortages, basic primary care, affordability and access, and public/private partnership initiatives.

“We have to continue to engage government on these partnerships and initiatives. We are resource-rich and as such have a lot and must contribute,” the Netcare CEO concluded, “not forgetting that we can’t have a sustainable private sector without a strong public sector.”