Private hospitals are committed to making their facilities accessible and affordable to the public at large, the Hospital Association of South Africa (Hasa) said on Monday.
”The assumption that only medical-aid beneficiaries consult in the private sector is inaccurate,” said Kurt Worrall-Clare, Hasa CEO.
According to a general household survey in 2006, ”many more South Africans are using private-sector facilities than simply those who belong to medical schemes”.
Worrall-Clare refuted claims of super-normal profits in the private hospital sector.
”The hospital sector, both locally and globally, offers the lowest returns on invested capital in the healthcare chain system,” he said.
He compared private hospitals to public hospitals, saying private hospitals had to pay a 14% tax, the cost of financing investments and rental charges. The private sector was also cross-subsiding the state’s purchase of pharmaceuticals.
Worrall-Clare said Hasa was committed to the training of nurses and that the private sector was spending over R150-million a year on the training of registered nurses.
”That’s our investment towards the future because if we don’t train more nurses now we will be short of staff in ten years’ time.”
The number of nurses trained in the private sector had gone up compared with previous years.
In 1998 only 200 nurses were trained while last year 5 984 were trained in the private sector, Worrall-Clare said. — Sapa