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Medics oppose greater power for minister
Tamar Kahn Science and Health Editor
2006-08-07

CAPE TOWN * SA's biggest doctors' group, the South African Medical Association (Sama), joined AIDS activists yesterday in opposing proposed legislative amendments to give greater powers to Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang over the Health Professions Council of SA and its allied professional boards.

The move, said Sama, would weaken the council and compromise its independence.

The council is a statutory body charged with overseeing the training and practice of health professionals, who are represented by 12 specialised boards, the largest of which is the 39000-strong medical and dental professional board.

Critics describe proposed changes to the Health Professions Act, currently before Parliament, as a further attempt to entrench government control over health-care professionals.

The Nursing Act was amended last year to give the minister greater powers over the nursing profession. At the moment the council has 52 members , of these 25 are elected by the professional boards. The bill proposes that the 25 member representatives be reduced to 16 and from now be appointed by the minister.

The Health Professions Amendment Bill proposes scrapping health professionals' right to elect their own board members, ostensibly because it is too costly, and giving the minister the right to appoint members on the basis of nominations from the profession instead. It is also proposed to give the minister the power to appoint members to the council, which is to be shrunk from 25 members to 16.

Sama said it "completely opposed" provisions for electing professional board members, which it said flouted the constitution and the Promotion of Administration of Justice Act.

"The new proviso denies the members of health professions their democratic right to elect board members * and diminishes their rights to participate in the regulation of their profession," Sama said in its written submission to Parliament.

Lack of professional autonomy risked diminishing public confidence in the council. "When government-employed health professionals were accused of being negligent in the 2005 Klebsiella outbreak, the public could elect to approach the council for recourse without fear of approaching a government-appointed body," said Sama.

The AIDS Law Project, which made a joint submission to Parliament with the Treatment Action Campaign lobby group, said the proposed bill failed to make provision for oversight of the council or its professional boards, either by Parliament or another body.

Project senior researcher Jonathan Berger also asked members of Parliament to scrap provisions in the draft bill that excluded anyone belonging to an organisation "of a political nature" from being appointed to the council.

The current wording of the bill could be interpreted to mean doctors who were officer bearers in organisations such as the Rural Doctors' Association of SA or Medicins Sans Frontires could be excluded, said Berger.

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