Private hospitals looked at to treat state patients

THE Gauteng Health Department plans to use private hospitals to treat overflow patients from public hospitals.

These plans were welcomed by both the DA and Arwyp Medical Centre, Kempton Park’s only private hospital.

“This is a good idea provided it is done through proper negotiation rather than coercion,” Jack Bloom MPL, DA Gauteng shadow MEC for health, said.

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“It makes sense for government to pay to use spare beds in private hospitals. Private doctors can also be contracted to cut down the serious surgery backlogs so patients don’t wait years for certain operations.

“The problem is that the Gauteng Health Department lacks the skills and flexibility to partner in a mutually beneficial way with the private health sector.

“This is why private GPs have been slow to participate in the district health project in Tshwane, which is a pilot for government’s proposed National Health Insurance (NHI).

“Payment concerns are a major reason for this failure. Netcare currently sends doctors to do surgery in the British National Health system, so a similar scheme in Gauteng could also work well.

“The department is correct to observe that 16 000 public hospital beds are inadequate to serve Gauteng’s 12 million population. The solution is greater efficiency in spending the R34.2-billion annual health budget and cooperating fruitfully with the private health sector to provide a better service to the public.”

The announcement was also welcomed by Otto Wypkema, CEO of Arwyp Medical Centre.

“MEC Mahlangu was quoted in press articles saying that the 16 000 beds at state hospitals were not enough to treat the province’s 12 million non-medical scheme members. She proposed that rather than building new hospitals, ways should be found to partner with the private sector.

“She was quoted as saying that a proposed ‘electronic-bed system’ would help the Department of Health to ascertain which hospitals had available beds. We are in favour of using private hospitals to treat overflow patients from public hospitals,” Wypkema said.

“But of course, we would have to agree on a suitable price. This might be difficult, as while the Department of Health is quite rightly seeking a ‘good deal’ for public sector patients, it does not appear that they have an accurate sense of the real cost of its hospital care. We would therefore propose a research study into the cost of public sector care, so that the starting point of price negotiations were realistic on both sides.

“A few years ago, a University of Cape Town actuary lecturer, Shivani Ranchod, was commissioned to investigate the relative costs of the private sector and public sector services. She found that based on information available in the public sector and without taking ‘hotel services’ into account, the real cost of the public and private sector were not poles apart,” Wypkema said.

“We would also be in favour of establishing a robust, transparent tendering system early on in the negotiation process. The introduction of National Health Insurance is likely to see greater use of private sector facilities by public sector patients, and it is important that equitable tendering processes are correctly designed at the outset.

“Imagine a process whereby different hospitals could bid for parcels of procedures, such as ‘100 hip replacements’ or ‘100 cataract procedures’, to be delivered over a specified time period. Hospitals and doctors could bid for processes where they had current capacity and expertise.

“Such a process could be a win/win. Public sector patients would not have to wait for years for certain operations due to backlogs and private hospitals could invest in new technology to increase efficiency, creating centres of excellence.”