BHF Press Release:

In the North Gauteng High Court, the Board of Health Care Funders and SAMWUMED were denied leave to appeal a court case which had as its basis the plundering of medical aid funds by the private sector. Click here

Zinhle Mapumulo: City Press

IF YOU want a better idea of what South Africa's public hospitals will look like once the National Health Insurance (NHI) scheme starts for real, head to North West. In Tshepong, Klerksdorp, Potchefstroom and Ventersdorp, which are some of the district's biggest towns, massive renovations have already happened at public hospitals.The renovations put the Dr K Kaunda District ahead of the pack - at least in terms of its hospitals' physical appearance.

Michel Sidibe, Chidi Nweneka and Margaret McGlynn: The Mail & Guardian

MAY 18 was World AIDS Vaccine Day and as leaders from 193 countries gather in Geneva for this week's World Health Assembly we would like to reinforce the urgent need to accelerate the AIDS response and call for continued efforts to ensure the development and delivery of a vaccine to end the epidemic. During the past 30 years, more than 60-million people have become infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), about 30-million have died and more than 16-million children have lost one or both parents to AIDS.

Tamar Kahn: Business Day

THE North Gauteng High Court has denied the Board of Healthcare Funders (BHF) leave to appeal against its ruling that it had no right to ask the courts to clarify the meaning of regulation 8, a controversial rule that deals with medical schemes' liabilities for paying claims for prescribed minimum benefits. At the heart of the legal row is a high-stakes dispute between the board and the Council for Medical Schemes (CMS) over the extent to which medical schemes should reimburse members' claims for prescribed minimum benefits, a basic basket of healthcare that all medical schemes must by law provide to members.

Londiwe Buthelezi: Business Report

THE decision by the independent appeals board for medical schemes that the Government Employees' Medical Scheme (Gems) could no longer pick and choose which government employees it accepted as members could see more small schemes vanish, hastening consolidation in the industry, according to health experts. The Council for Medical Schemes (CMS) announced last week that the independent appeals board had ruled that Gems must comply with legislation and accept any and all individuals or groups that wished to join the scheme, as long as they were employees of the government or of a public entity or were previously employed by these organs.