Africa-Press – South-Africa. Health minister Aaron Motsoaledi says the department does not keep track of the number of documented or undocumented foreigners who use public health-care facilities.
This was revealed in a written reply to a parliamentary question by ActionSA MP Kgosi Letlape about the number of foreigners who have received health-care services in public hospitals and clinics.
Motsoaledi said this is in accordance with section 27 of the constitution which states everyone has the right to access health-care services regardless of documentation status.
“No-one may be refused emergency medical treatment. Health care is provided based on clinical need, not on nationality or documentation status,” he said.
While patients are required to provide proof of identity when visiting health-care facilities, “services are not withheld from those unable to do so”.
Letlape asked whether undocumented foreigners have been reported to the home affairs department by medical professionals assisting them.
Motsoaledi said patients’ nationalities are not recorded in the system.
“The patient administration and records systems in public health facilities do not classify or record individuals as South African or foreign and are therefore unable to provide a number of undocumented people who accessed health-care services over the past five years.
“Many South African citizens also access health care without presenting identification, many of whom have no identity documents issued by home affairs or any other official form of identity. This makes it impossible to determine whether such undocumented patients are foreigners.”
ActionSA wants only South Africans and permanent residents to have use of public health-care facilities.
“The absence of patient categorisation, where health records fail to distinguish between citizens and foreigners, severely compromises effective planning, budgeting and policy formulation,” Letlape said.
“This is further compounded by the lack of identification or status verification mechanism, which means patients are not required to present identification, preventing health-care providers from verifying legal status or maintaining accurate and continuous patient records.
“This situation is not mirrored in any other country, where foreigners are typically required to possess medical insurance as a condition of their visa applications. Yet South Africans are being gaslit into accepting this unsustainable burden as normal.”
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