Cape Town - MEDiPOS Medical Scheme was aggrieved by the death of one of its members, an SA Post Office (Sapo) employee, last week after his family struggled to get treatment at a private hospital when his medical aid was unavailable as result of Sapo not paying members’ medical aid contributions.
Gatesville post office employee Michael de Bruyn, 49, died last Monday after being taken first to Melomed Mitchells Plain Private Hospital when he developed stroke-like symptoms. De Bruyn’s widow, Debbie, said she took him to Melomed but was turned away when MEDiPOS was unavailable due to Sapo failing to make payments.
Debbie then took her husband to Mitchells Plain District Hospital, where he died a few hours later from a stroke.
MEDiPOS principal officer Thabi Mlotshwa extended sincere condolences to the De Bruyn family for the loss. She said MEDiPOS benefits were not generally suspended and assured members that despite Sapo not paying the current contribution (nor the historic debt of more than R600 million), MEDiPOS decided not to suspend member benefits at this point.
“We advise all our members that should service providers refuse to treat you, immediately contact MEDiPOS so that we can assist you in obtaining medical services,” Mlotshwa said.
Mlotshwa said that should anyone need to contact the Scheme to verify the benefit status of our members they could contact 0860 100 078 or via email to: [email protected] for general enquiries and for authorisations to [email protected].
Sapo spokesperson Johan Kruger said the post office acknowledged the historical amounts owed to MEDiPOS and, apart from payments for November 2022, current payments were up to date. “We are working on fully resolving the medical aid matters with all stakeholders,” Kruger said.
Melomed Mitchells Plain manager Faizel Hendricks said Michael never entered the Melomed and/or the trauma unit. His wife also did not make Melomed and/or the trauma unit aware of his medical state when she entered. Hendricks said even if they did not accept MEDiPOS, they were obligated to stabilise the patient.
He said they had conducted a thorough investigation and denied that De Bruyn had been turned away.
Debbie said she arrived at Melomed and entered the emergency unit. Her husband waited in the car as he could not walk. There she was told that they did not take MEDiPOS. She then went to a doctor’s office where a staff member helped her to contact MEDiPOS but no one answered the phone.
“I told her my husband is sitting outside and is getting a stroke,” Debbie said. She said her husband was not here any more and all the “sorry for the loss” messages would not bring him back.
MEDiPOS has since instructed the administrator to which the service is outsourced to look at the call logs for the day and to respond regarding the alleged failure to answer the call at Melomed.
Mlotshwa said, “We wish to reiterate again that as a Scheme we are disheartened of the
tragedy that the de Bruyn family has gone through, and it is our sincere wish that no
further similar incidents occur.”
Dianne Kohler-Barnard, MP DA spokesperson for Communications and Digital Technologies, previously encouraged Sapo members, who also had their medical aid stopped despite paying their contributions, to send her their details for an investigation into the “mismanagement and thievery” at Sapo, which has since been handed over to the Hawks.
Kohler-Barnard questioned Sapo at the Portfolio Committee meeting yesterday about the continued deductions including medical aid, pension and other contributions off employees’ salaries without paying them over.
“They are seeing decades of payments to their medical aid, and pension and UIF simply disappear. There are members being refused Chemotherapy after cancer operations - because of this - when they have faithfully paid their medical aid for decades. This is nothing short of fraud on a massive scale, and I'm hoping the Hawks investigation resolves this,” Kohler-Barnard said.