Outrageous+plans+by+private+hospitals+to+increase+fees,+SACP




 * SACP Media Release, 6 January 2008**

=Outrageous plans by private hospitals to increase fees=

The South African Communist Party is outraged at the plans by some of the big private hospital groups, including the National Hospital Network and Netcare, to hike fees by as much as up to 33% as from this year. The private health care sector is already consuming a much bigger slice of our health resources and is also making huge profits for itself at the direct expense of the majority of the people of our country, feeding like parasites on workers’ already overstretched medical aid schemes.

It is the SACP’s strongest belief that access to health care is a universal basic human right that should not be turned into a commodity to be bought and sold in the marketplace, accessed in our country only by the rich, often white, and inaccessible to the workers and the poor, who are predominantly black. It is also our strongest belief that to allow market forces to run rampant in our health care system poses the biggest threat in dealing with, for instance, the HIV/AIDS pandemic and a range of other diseases afflicting the overwhelming majority of our people.

We therefore call upon the government to intervene urgently and prevent this massive hike of fees and plunder by these capitalist institutions, and also consider passing legislation to regulate the private health care sector such that it is part of our overall goal to create a healthy South African nation, irrespective of one’s race or class position in society.

We are also strongly critical of government allowing the outsourcing of many of the basic services in our hospitals, like catering, laundry service, ambulance services, etc; as this only acts to privatise, by stealth, vital components of our already under-resourced and overstretched public health system. Such outsourcing has led to deterioration of service delivery, the erosion of workers’ rights, and has handed over these services to the greed of private capitalists. We call upon government to halt the outsourcing of services in the public health sector, and take back those already outsourced services back into government hands.

We also call upon government to speed up the establishment of a National Health Insurance Scheme, which should also include the creation of a framework for affordable access by the overwhelming majority of our people to both public and private health care institutions.

The SACP is currently waging a Red October Campaign aimed at the creation of an affordable health care system in our country. For too long now the private health care sector has seen itself as being apart from and not responsible for the overall health needs of the overwhelming majority of our people. The SACP wishes to strongly condemn this attitude as the most blatant prioritization of profits over the health of the nation.

In taking forward our current Red October Campaign the SACP is going to also focus on private hospitals and clinics and call for, amongst other things, the right of every South African requiring emergency treatment to be stabilized, without any charge, at the nearest hospital, clinic or health care facility, irrespective of whether these are private or public, and irrespective of whether those needing such help have medical aid or not. We would like to see this requirement, as a short-term measure, being put into law and to be made a condition for awarding of operating licences to private health providers. In order to achieve this we are going to hold demonstrations, marches and pickets outside some of the major capitalist private clinics and hospitals during this year.

We therefore call upon our allies, the ANC and COSATU, and generally all progressive health and other organizations, to join us in deepening the struggle for affordable and accessible health care for all, as one of our major campaigns for 2008. In addition, the SACP will raise all these issues on affordable health care before the Alliance Summit planned for during the first three months of 2008.


 * Issued by the SACP**

Malesela Maleka SACP Spokesperson**
 * Contact:

By e-mail

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