The Health Market Inquiry panel has its work cut out to determine the true state of pricing in the private healthcare sector. This week’s public hearings concluded with submissions from the Radiological Society of South Africa (RSSA) and Mediscor PBM. The RSSA put forward a view that radiologist are price takers, Continue Reading
The Health Market Inquiry panel has its work cut out to determine the true state of pricing in the private healthcare sector. This week’s public hearings concluded with submissions from the Radiological Society of South Africa (RSSA) and Mediscor PBM. The RSSA put forward a view that radiologist are price takers, Continue Reading
The AIDS Law Project (ALP) welcomes the Minister of Health’s budget speech of 13th April 2010. We are encouraged by his commitment to strengthen the public health system, the setting of clear targets for HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment and the urgency in the Minister’s approach to tackling the health crisis in South Africa.
BEMF 2nd meeting: The treatment guidelines and the ARV tender – 5 February 2010.
Presentations:
Government Notice 2007 of 2005 (Government Gazette No. 28214 of 11 November 2005) calls for submissions – amongst other things – on a methodology for conforming with international benchmarks of the prices of medicines. According to the notice, the methodology will be determined and published by the Minister of Health (“the Minister”) in terms of regulation 5(2)(e) of the Regulations Relating to a Transparent Pricing System for Medicines and Scheduled Substances (“the pricing regulations”).
In an advertisement placed in the Sunday Times (dated 23 October 2005 and entitled “Call for Submissions”), the Pricing Committee invited “interested parties to provide input on an appropriate dispensing fee as envisaged in terms of section 22G of the Medicines and Related Substances Act, Act No. 101 of 1965” (the Medicines Act). In particular, the advertisement called for interested parties to “provide input on all issues that are relevant to the determination of an appropriate dispensing fee.”
Section 27(2) of the Constitution imposes on the state a positive obligation to take reasonable measures to realise the right of access to health care services for all. By enacting the Medical Schemes Act, 131 of 1998 (the Act), government has created a powerful framework for the effective regulation of the private medical scheme industry.
The global AIDS epidemic is one of the greatest threats to security and development in the world. Millions of people in developing countries are dying of AIDS, TB and malaria – while the first world sits idly by. High prices of medicines, protected from competition by patent law, make it impossible for poor people to protect themselves against illness and death.