For the past four years, family members have had to pay for a death notification at the Potchefstroom Hospital following the death of their loved ones.
After a local undertaker blew the whistle, a reporter at Netwerk24, Susan Cilliers, investigated. She confirmed with the spokesperson of the National Department of Health (NDH), Popo Maja, that the hospital was not supposed to charge any fee for the notification.
A death notification is issued by a medical doctor at a hospital when a patient has died of natural causes. Family members need this notification to get a death certificate at Home Affairs.
The undertaker who noticed the wrongdoing, Johan van Deventer, was appalled after one of his clients told him the costs of a death notification has increased more than 50% from R412 to R620.
Only the Potchefstroom Hospital was charging for a death notification. The other hospitals in Potchefstroom and Klerksdorp issue the notification free of charge.
This costs didn’t make sense to Johan. “The people who are hospitalised in the Potchefstroom Hospital is poor. They cannot afford to pay for private hospitals. Why would a state hospital charge these funds and private hospitals don’t?”, says Johan.
Popo Maja says that the mistake could be attributed to an interpretation error. Maja thinks the North West Province could have mistaken the death notification (BI-1663 form) for a more detailed medical report that must be completed when a person wants to claim from the Road Accident Fund or an insurance company.
