NGO challenges restricted migrant access to health care in SA

Section27 launches online publication titled Free healthcare services in South Africa: A case for all mothers and children yesterday in collaboration with partner organisations to clarify laws regarding who has access to free health services in South Africa.

The National Health Care Act states that all pregnant, lactating women and children under the age of six are entitled to free healthcare services, including people seeking asylum, undocumented foreign nationals and those affected by statelessness.

But from May 2020, the Section27 advisory office has had an influx of migrant pregnant women and children who had been denied access to health care services. Some were required to pay medical fees to be assisted.

The centre’s attorney, Sibusisiwe Ndlela, said they investigated these allegations and discovered the Gauteng department of health had introduced new policy implementation guidelines on patient administration and revenue management in 2020.

“All categories of migrant persons, except documented refugees, were now required to pay exorbitant amounts of money to access services at hospitals,” said Ndlela.

She said they found the new policy discriminatory and a contradiction of the National Health Care Act. As a result, the centre launched an application in the High Court in Johannesburg against the MEC for health in Gauteng, the minister of health, the director-general for health and Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital.

The application aims to confirm access to free health care irrespective of nationality and to set aside the new policies.

Senior attorney at the Centre for Child Law Liesl Muller said the constitutional right to health care is applicable to everyone within the borders of South Africa, irregardless of their migrant status.

Tasanya Nomaliso Chinsany, at Doctors Without Borders, emphasised that rejection from health care services has biological, psychological and social effects.