The DA has accused\u00a0Health Minister, Aaron Motsoaledi of unlawful conduct following the emergence of a letter in which the minister apparently instructed the Council of Medical Schemes (CMS)\u00a0to collect private data about medical scheme members in order maintain a \u2018Beneficiary Registry\u2019 of members.<\/p>\n
The letter instructs all medical schemes, administrators and regulated private health care funding entities to furnish the CMS with regular updated electronic records pertaining to basic personal and demographic (including domicile) details of all members and their beneficiaries, as stored on their respective member management systems.<\/p>\n
It excludes information related to the medical history of medical scheme members.<\/p>\n
Speaking in parliament today,\u00a0DA Shadow Minister of Health, Wilmot James,\u00a0<\/em>called government’s collection of “very private, sensitive information” unconstitutional and in flagrant violation of the Protection of Personal Information Act (POPI).<\/p>\n The leaked letters indicate that\u00a0the registry was being used to “monitor the impact of current policies and identifying medical scheme members who access services in the public sector\u201d.<\/p>\n Several\u00a0medical scheme principals refused to divulge the requested information, the\u00a0DA said, although it was not disclosed which schemes had forwarded information and which had not.<\/p>\n You can read the leaked letter here<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n
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