Lifestyle and Leisure
South African health care
Forty years ago a South African doctor called Christiaan Barnard made medical history.
Barnard, an Afrikaner from the Karoo, beat three American surgeons in the race to complete the first ever human heart transplant. Despite the fact that the South African surgeon was lacking in research, he performed the first transplant in 1967, taking the heart of a brain dead 25-year-old killed in a hit a run incident and placed it in the body of a terminally ill man. The man died to due unrelated causes 18 days later, but Bernard went on to complete the third successful transplant.
Today, private facilities and medical research in South Africa are cutting-edge, placing the country firmly at the forefront of medical advances. South African healthcare has some similarities to care in the United States. While the private sector is advanced, South Africa is a developed country without national health insurance. Instead, consumer-driven plans with medical savings accounts are held by over half of South Africans with private healthcare. Everyone else is forced to rely on the underfunded public sector.
South Africa's health system consists of a large public sector and a smaller but fast-growing private sector. Healthcare varies from the most basic primary healthcare, offered free by the state, to highly specialised hi-tech health services available in the private sector for those who can afford it. The public sector is under-resourced and over-used, while the flourishing private sector, run largely on commercial lines, caters to middle- and high-income earners who tend to be members of medical schemes (18 per cent of the population), and to foreigners who come to South Africa looking for top-quality surgical procedures at relatively affordable prices. The private sector also attracts most of the country's health professionals.
Amanda's experience
Emigrant Amanda Rose, who has lived in South Africa with her husband Lou for two years, shares her experiences of SA's healthcare below. Healthcare in South Africa compares very favourably to the UK. In fact the healthcare in South Africa is some of the best in the world. Private healthcare or Medical Aid, as it is called over here, is a must. Although there are in fact state hospitals where the poorer people are taken care of, it is most definitely advisable to have private health cover. There are several companies which provide Medical Aid, and almost all of them provide different levels of cover, for example;
Hospital Plan only – providing cover if you were to be admitted to hospital for any operation (you can also choose different amounts of money you want to pay per month depending on how much cover you can afford – from 150 per cent cover to 300 per cent cover).
MSA (Medical Savings Account) – this is an add on if you are having, for example, X-rays or day visits, even optical or doctors' visits can be paid for out of this account.
Comprehensive – this is the all singing all dancing package – the most expensive, but it covers everything including all your medication.
We are currently on Discovery Health – for two people on a 300 per cent Hospital Plan, this costs ZAR1,984 per month which equates to £151.00. However, on this plan there are several benefits. One particular benefit is our Virgin Active gym membership for ZAR45 (£3.40) per month. We decided not to take out the MSA, rather keep our money in the bank – but I am still not so sure if that was such a good idea what with all the bits and bobs we have had to pay out over the last year or so.
The healthcare professionals over here are all very competent but laid back. They are very charming, and always put you at ease, and just make it a pleasure to visit them. Neither of us have had any bad experiences with any of the healthcare professionals we have visited, they have all tended to our needs speedily. I remember my first visit with our doctor, a young lady doctor, who when I was registering, pumped me full of questions as to why I wanted to stay in South Africa.
Our doctor and dentist are in the same complex, called Intercare, there is also an opticians on site, physiotherapist and a number of treatment rooms where the nurses can do various tests. Once every three months we can go in and have chloresterol, blood pressure and other tests done at no extra cost.
Whenever either Lou or myself have been for an x-ray, we have visited the local hospital, which are called Medi-Clinics. Even if it is crowded, I have always been amazed at how quickly I have been seen. In and around the grounds of the hospitals are what you could call medical practitioners or specialist villages – these are where the specialists in their fields have their consulting rooms, a bit like Harley Street, but next to each hospital in Cape Town.
I have been very pleased with the service that I have received thus far, although I have to say, for someone like myself who has to have chronic medication all her life and in the UK of course it was free, now I have to pay for it, even after a year, and my Medical Aid only contributes ZAR250 towards the ZAR615 per month bill, you start to appreciate the NHS and all you can fall back on in the UK.
We had private healthcare in the UK as well, but I have to say that when I was in a NHS hospital in the UK I felt that the level of care was, of course, a bit more stretched. I am sure that is the case here as well, although I am yet to experience the public health sector in South Africa. Another thing to note is that our alarm provider ADT has a paramedic alert button. If you have a house medical emergency, you just press the medical alert button on your ADT alarm pad and it will alert them that you need medical aid. They will phone you, but if you can't get to the phone, they will send a vehicle anyway with paramedics on board.
It was only out here that I found out that I had a rotation of my left hip joint, and it was my personal trainer at the gym who noticed it, straight away I had an assessment, later followed up by an appointment with an orthopedic surgeon and several x-rays. It's amazing that all through my life, and many years of professional dancing lessons nobody noticed that there was a problem with my left leg until now that the pain has surfaced into osteoarthritis.
Lou had a fall in April, badly injuring his shoulder. Three months later, and after several sessions with the physio and a MR scan, he has finally had to succumb to an operation to repair a tear to a damaged rotator cup – he is being seen on Friday. I wonder how long he would have had to wait in the UK?
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