If passed by Parliament as it stands, the Health Professions Amendment Bill will effectively make professional medical boards in South Africa arms of the government, the Democratic Alliance warned on Monday.
The party is therefore proposing four key amendments to the measure when it comes before the National Assembly’s health committee on Tuesday, DA health spokesperson Gareth Morgan told a parliamentary media briefing.
The proposed changes the DA is calling for include:
allowing health professionals to directly elect their own representatives to their boards;
to guarantee each board at least one representative on the Health Professions Council;
to allow the council to appoint the registrar of the council; and,
to ensure that the minister makes regulations pertaining specifically to the training of health professionals in consultation with the council.
”As it stands, the Bill will effectively make the Health Professions Council of South Africa and the professional boards arms of the Department of Health by removing the right of health professionals to directly elect their own representatives to the representative boards.”
Morgan said Minister of Health Manto Tshabalala-Msimang’s desire for control over all aspects of health care in South Africa has to be resisted, and it is the DA’s hope the proposed amendments will be adopted by the committee. — Sapa