Solutionist Thinkers presents the memorandum to the CMS

The Council for Medical Schemes (CMS) welcomes engagement with all stakeholders, including health care providers represented by the Solutionist Thinkers on matters that affect beneficiaries of medical schemes. The CMS embraces the exercise of all rights, including the democratic right to demonstrate, protest and to present petitions enshrined in the Constitution. 

The memorandum presented to the CMS, by the Solutionist Thinkers, reiterates issues that were ventilated in the Section 59 Investigation, chaired by Advocate Tembeka Ngcukaitobi SC. In January 2021, the Section 59 Investigation Panel issued an interim report and invited comments that were due 5 April 2021. 

Despite the COVID-19 pandemic affecting work progress on many fronts, the CMS made extensive comments that may go a long way to resolve the disputes raised in the Section 59 Investigation. 

As a creature of statute, the CMS and all its powers fall within the provisions of the Medical Schemes Act (131 of 1998). As such, the CMS urges Solutionist Thinkers to assist in the process of resolving the disputes under section 59 in terms of the law. 

The protest action of today, 17 September 2021, is preceded by several difficult but fruitful engagements between the CMS and Solutionist Thinkers. 

Finding a solution to the dispute over application of section 59 of the Medical Schemes Act (131 of 1998) remains a pressing problem which the CMS wants to resolve as much as the Solutionist Thinkers.