The Section 59 Investigation Panel into allegations of racial discrimination by medical schemes against black healthcare providers in South Africa, has concluded in its final report that the allegations are true.
The Panel was setup in 2019 following reports that some medical aid schemes in South Africa practiced unfair racial discrimination in their investigations into fraud, waste and abuse by certain black healthcare providers.
The affected parties appealed to the Minister of Health for intervention and the Panel was then formed to probe the allegations.
Chairperson of the Panel, Advocate Tembeka Ngcukaitobi, The evidence of the risk ratios before us showed racial discrimination to black service providers by the schemes. Let me repeat this, we were not a court, we did not adjudicate individual complaints, we did not run a trial and make findings about unfair discrimination in terms of Section 9 or the Pepuda Act, we only considered the facts and the facts lead us to one conclusion that the evidence of the risk ratios before us showed racial discrimination to black service providers by the schemes.