DOCTOR RECRUITMENT INITIATIVE

The Private Health-Care industry in South Africa

The private health-care industry, a major industry in its own right, forms part of the bigger overall health-care industry in South Africa. Together with the public sector, it forms the total health-care sector in the country.

The delivery of health-care services is an integrated process comprising many roll-players. Medical practitioners forms part of an integrated network of service providers and together with private hospitals and other role-players the make up the supply-side of the private health-care economy. The demand-side of the private health-care industry is made up of patients, employers, medical aid schemes (who act on behalf of patients) and managed care organisations (who operate in conjunction with medical aid schemes).

The private hospital industry in South Africa is currently dominated by three large groups, of which Medi-Clinic is one. These three groups own approximately 80% of the available private hospital beds in the country.

Medical practitioners supply the necessary professional services that are needed to treat patients. They are responsible for managing the clinical processes in a hospital and they are in charge of the treatment process of patients.

Medical practitioners are not employed as staff of private hospitals, but they function as independent professionals. The ethical rules of the medical profession prohibit private hospitals from employing doctors directly. Private hospitals accommodate medical practitioners as far as possible. Rooms are, normally provided for at most private hospitals, to ease access for medical practitioners who want to admit their patients to the hospital. The treatment of patients in hospitals makes up a substantial part of any medical specialist’s practice. The private hospital and it’s supporting specialists forms a medical centre that offer a one stop medical care to patients.

Medi-Clinic is committed to long-term business partnerships (with a mechanism for managing relationships) with medical practitioners.

The placement of practitioners at Medi-Clinic hospitals are done in consultation with existing practitioners at the hospital and determine by market driven needs and a thorough practice feasibility study.