RAF rot affect labour
THE Road Accident
Fund (RAF) does not fall under the Department of Employment and Labour but the shenanigans and the dysfunctionality of the RAF almost mirrors those of the department.
In the past week, we have seen two interesting court rulings against the RAF.
First, a few days ago, the RAF lost its application to appeal against a court ruling in 2022. The court said the RAF would have to continue paying the medical aid schemes (a third party) for medical expenses incurred on behalf of injured patients (members of the schemes) who had been in vehicle accidents. The medical schemes have paid out the medical service providers who had attended to the members injured in road accidents. In turn, the medical aid schemes would claim the money from the RAF.
Although the RAF was taking years to pay the medical schemes, they had the clout and ability to hold the RAF to account.
Invariably, the
RAF would not pay the medical service providers, leaving a situation where medical service providers did not want to minister to road accident fund victims.
The whole system is falling apart and those who have had accidents can testify to the nightmare they have had to go through to try to claim. The only reason why the RAF, which is a statutory body, wanted to stop paying the medical aid schemes was that the schemes had the financial ability to hold the RAF to account.
The RAF is aware individuals cannot hold it to account because of the prohibitive legal costs and the long wait for the courts to adjudicate the claims. The solution the RAF came up with was to introduce a policy stating that it would no longer pay third-party medical aid schemes. This destroyed the injured person’s ability to see medical doctors of their choice through their medical aids. Stopping the payment to medical aids would stop the medical aids helping the injured individuals as the medical aids are not liable for road accident victims.
The court, sensibly, ruled that the change in protocol was illegal and the RAF had to continue paying medical aid schemes.
The whole system, thought up by duplicitous ministers, is repeating itself within the Department of Employment and Labour. After at least three years of debate, the Compensation Fund, wanting to introduce the non-payment of third parties, could not introduce that nonpayment through the legislative change.
The nasty minister of employment and labour chose to look at a sneaky way around the problem – to introduce regulations trying to stop third party intervention in the Compensation Fund. The Compensation Fund, being as broken as the RAF, is paying out very few claims. If an injury occurs at work, the individual is covered by the Compensation Fund and should be able to go to a doctor of their choice.