BHF rejects report on racial bias in healthcare

SECTION 59 REPORT

- SIYABONGA SITHOLE

THE Board of Healthcare Funders (BHE) has rejected the long-awaited Section 59 report, which found positive and glaring alleged racial bias and discrimination by medical health schemes against Black health professionals.

Presented by panel chair Advocate Tembeka Ngcukaitobi, the report found systemic procedural unfairness and a deeply entrenched power imbalance that over the years has disproportionately and negatively impacted black medical professionals.

The inquiry, commissioned by the Council for Medical Schemes (CMS), launched in 2019, scrutinised practices by medical aid schemes such as Discovery, Medscheme and the Government Employees Medical Scheme (GEMS) between 2012 and 2019.

“We confirm the findings and recommendations in the interim report, that the procedure followed by medical schemes when they claw back monies allegedly owed by practitioners or when they investigate instances of fraud, waste, and abuse is unfair,’ said Ngcukaitobi.