MP says medical aid societies that cannot pay doctors should ship out

HON. NDUNA:  Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir.  I will talk as the seconder of this motion and I applaud the mover of this motion, Hon. Maridadi for speaking so vociferously about the need to indulge in information technology and dissemination through the modern day way of doing business.  Mr. Speaker Sir, he has quite ventilated a lot of key points in particular that where there is service that is rendered, service needs to be paid for.   I also applaud that and allude to that fact.

Mr. Speaker Sir, I will start with the prayer where I believe the referee in this matter, who is the Minister of Health and Child Care should immediately make a Ministerial Statement to allay the fears of those that are contributing towards medical aid, those that are receiving medical attention, those that are giving medical attention and the recipients of payment for those that are giving medical attention.

I also stand here as the Chairperson of your Portfolio Committee on Transport and Infrastructural Development where there are 15 accidents per day and five people are dying each day due to road carnage.  In those 15 accidents per day, you have more than 45 people that are injured who require medical attention.  In the same vein, I call for Government to expeditiously enact or put in place the Road Disaster Management Fund that is going to cater for those that are injured in road accidents and also expedite the disbursement of compassionate funds towards those that will have been bereaved in these road carnages.

Mr. Speaker Sir, as I talk about those that die in road traffic accidents per day, I am also alive to the fact that they could be contributors to medical aid societies and it means each month, we are removing out of circulation, contributors to the tune of 150 men, women or children that contribute towards Medical Aid Societies. However, one would want or hasten to ask how many of these people get their reimbursement once they do not get the services from these doctors because they would have perished in these accidents. In a way, we need to make sure that we oil and computerise the system so that backward and forward linkages are well oiled in a way that is going to seek reimbursement and seek forward contribution for those that would have survived and bereaved in these road traffic accidents  because their remittances get to be cut short as soon as they are involved in this process of bereavement.

Why do I talk of computerisation of remittances and payment systems towards Medical Aid Societies. I am alive to the fact that Statutory Instrument 45 of 2005 speaks to 12.5% remittances to Traffic Safety Council from all insurance sectors that are currently handling insurance for third party insurances. All this money to the tune of US$72m per year was not having the 12.5% being deducted from it until your Committee raised its voice and concern and spoke with passion when they brought before it the Permanent Secretary of Transport and Infrastructural Development to the effect that the Permanent Secretary and his entourage were going to be held responsible individually and severally if this Statutory Instrument was not enforced in its totality.

As we speak, the contributions of insurance and remittances of 12.5% to Traffic Safety Council are now without any impediment because they have been computerised and that money is now going where it is supposed to go. It is now being directed in the manner that it is supposed to be directed for awareness campaigns and maybe in the future, for compensation to those that would have been bereaved and those that would have been injured in road traffic accidents.

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