WHAT’S THE PROGNOSIS FOR SA’S PRIVATE HEALTHCARE?
the core of capitalism is that innovative individuals will identify a need in the market and fill it. Such innovation and risk-taking often comes at a premium. One such gaping need in the South African market has been the private healthcare sector, as state health services struggled to keep up with demand.
The Competition Commission’s Health Market Inquiry Report, a multi-year endeavour which was recently released, states that public hospitals “are not able to compete with private hospitals, since they do not consistently provide the quality of care required to compete against the large hospital groups”. The commission, a public functionary that didn’t respond to questions for this article, then set out what is wrong with the provision of medical services by the large private hospital groups.
Taking aim at hospitals
The inquiry found that Netcare commanded a market share of 31% of all private hospital beds and 33% of all non-state admitted patients in 2016. Mediclinic had 26.8% off all these beds and admitted 28.6% of private patients. Life Healthcare owned 25.3% of all private beds and admitted 28.5% of all patients who were not reliant on the state for their healthcare.
