Health Minister Dr Aaron Motsoaledi outlines plans for fairer compensation to reduce medico-legal claims, urging Parliament to support mediation efforts.
The Health Department has set its sights on introducing “fairer compensation” for patients who experienced medical injuries as one of the ways to reduce medico-legal claims.
Health Minister Dr Aaron Motsoaledi disclosed this when briefing the joint meeting of parliamentary committees, saying a “fairer compensation” mechanism could be designed.
He urged Parliament to support their planned move towards mediation of medico-legal claims as they are busy training mediation officers.
“Many countries, especially Scandinavian countries, have proven that this is possible.
“This is whereby panels of retired judges, retired senior medical and nursing staff, solicitors, social workers and others are put together.
“Their purpose is to determine and arrive at a fair compensation for those who have experienced medical injuries rather than a ‘legal shout in court’,” he said.
He argued that this method guaranteed many people who were deserving were compensated, rather than being subjected to long, unending court cases whose outcomes may be uncertain.
“We wish to pursue this course of action,” Motsoaledi said.
His briefing came a week after the Special Investigating Unit updated the standing committee on public accounts about fraud in the medico-legal claims and preventing R4 billion in financial losses.
The entity found that the payment trend in the payment of medico-legal claims showed a 10% growth rate from R265 million paid by the provincial departments in 2012-13 to R2.6bn in 2022-23.
Motsoaledi told the MPs on Wednesday that his department wanted to have mediation officers to settle litigation cases out of court.
Already, 18 legal and medical officers from provinces had been trained in mediation.
Motsoaledi also said he had instructed the director-general to re-advertise a tender for companies to assist with management of medico-legal claims after a contract that expired in 2022.
The contracted companies used to contact law firms who submitted claims and ask for further information, only for the claims to be withdrawn.
“The department was of the view that they would develop internal capacity, but I don’t think that it is possible to get people with forensic expertise.
“I just instructed the director-general to urgently re-advertise the tender to look for these skills. This is because these companies have the capacity to pick up a lot of claims that are invalid or fraudulent more than our officials can.”
DA MP Karl le Roux said the mediation on medico-legal claims was the good way to go by the department.
ANC MP Soviet Lekganyane said he supported the “fair competition” mechanism as a way to deal with litigation.
EFF MP Suzan Thembekwayo said on the CSIR pilot project: “If it yields positive results, let it be used in all the remaining provinces so that we have uniformity.”
Cape Times