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Thread: Medical Aid

  1. #21
    Site Caretaker Dave A's Avatar
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    I think there is little doubt that some state hospitals are better than others - and at various times some of them have even been centres of excellence.

  2. #22
    Gold Member garthu's Avatar
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    Sorry to hear about your buddy tec0, really not nice. Hope he comes right. Yes i generalized to much, most of the hospitals i would never want to end up in either. Some years ago i ended up in a dodgy little government hospital after a car accident and its the only place they could take me. The biggest friggin cockroach walked past me while in bed. They hadnt stitched me yet, i walked out of there!!! Got a lift home. Went to my GP the next day. Got a real bollocking but at the time decided my fate was better off not being there!

    I do still say though that pretoria academic is really not a bad place. I know people have had experiences there also but so far mine have been ok. All my experiences with the local private have been terrible, not talking about service, the actual diagnosis and care. Wife was in ICU for 5 days or so cause they mis-diagnosed her, sent her home with voltaren. 2 days later ICU with pneumonia. The same hospital as the cancer story! I think all the doctors there suck! Another friend that was stabbed recently died there even though he had been OK for several hours, he died from blood loss. They hadnt treated him for hours.

    I would love to name and shame the hospital, but wont! Private is really not all it is cracked up to be!
    Garth

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  3. #23
    Diamond Member tec0's Avatar
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    Still it is a real gamble at the moment. Going to some hospitals may be beneficial others... no... It is a death-trap. Even the facilities are unfit to such a degree where I would personally point out that hygiene is none existent. No working toilets, showers or baths. No clean water or bedding is provided. The food is rotten! It smells rotten.

    When you enter the hallway you are overwhelmed by the stench of excrement and flies and the walls you cannot even touch. The facilities are neglected and basically unfit.

    The care itself is none existent and medication goes missing and or is never administered. This is the care we as tax payers are paying for!

    People think you have a medical plan and you can avoid all of that I say no! Go and take it all in. Imagine your child or loved one must endure all of that... It is not acceptable so why are we accepting it?

    Our private hospital sucks, my drip turned into a transfusion blood was going out of my body into my medication. I phoned my doctor from my mobile and she came and it was fixed within minutes. But it still proofs that our medical system is failing.

    Yes our private hospital is a bad place to be but you have a better survival chance with them then in our public hospital. I think a massif mass action mass complaint is needed to wake our government up to address these problems!
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  4. #24
    Gold Member garthu's Avatar
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    It is not acceptable so why are we accepting it?


    This is so true. What really gets to me is the only way these places get sorted out is through private intervention, not tax money which it SHOULD BE!

    Had a call from a charity the other day re Pholosong hospital. They raising funds for ventilators etc etc. Whats quite interesting is it would only take around 10 mil to make a HUGE impact there, around a 5th on what was used on some recent celebration event (cant recall exactly).

    They asked me if we could donate a ventilator at around 250K, was it in our budget

    Possibly the problem with medical care is you only tend to think about it or react to it when you need it. If they had that daily demonstration to sort it out, a strike etc... who knows
    Garth

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  5. #25
    Site Caretaker Dave A's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by tec0 View Post
    Yes our private hospital is a bad place to be but you have a better survival chance with them then in our public hospital. I think a massif mass action mass complaint is needed to wake our government up to address these problems!
    The problem there is government would interpret that as endorsement of their ultimate solution - the National Health Care Plan. And I'm far from convinced that's the solution to the abysmal state of many of our hospitals. We'd probably just end up losing the option for really good ones.

  6. #26
    Diamond Member tec0's Avatar
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    Well welcome to Idiocracy and yes it is a word now I have personally added it to my word dictionary so it will not show up as a spelling mistake. Money is not the problem, our government is literally partying more money away then what it will take to fix a hospital!

    Yet, they cannot figure out that a strict no BS system will sort out all our hospitals within a month. I just don’t know anymore, it really seems like SAmbabwe is a reality now and I am sorry to say this but I see no point in living in this country anymore.
    peace is a state of mind
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  8. #27
    Diamond Member Justloadit's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by tec0 View Post
    Justloadit > Would you mind explaining this in more detail for us please. It would be very helpful
    Hi Teco,

    I suggest your book keeper do this for you when you do your income tax return.

    Basically, you collect your medical bills from the 1st of March to the 28th of February, ensuring that all bills have your full names and address. When you complete your income tax form, the value of your medical bills is then subtracted from your total earnings. The tax is then calculated on this amount. There is a limit to the maximum amount you pay. If you are retired, then there is no maximum you can claim. I do not the exact details, but I have been getting my auditor to do this for years now. Very few people actually realize that this is legal. In most cases, SARS has requested copies from me of the invoices that are being claimed, so ensure that you meet the criteria.
    Victor - Knowledge is a blessing or a curse, your current circumstances make you decide!
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  9. Thank given for this post:

    Dave A (14-Jan-11), tec0 (19-Jan-11)

  10. #28
    Platinum Member SilverNodashi's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by JWalker View Post
    Hi Guys & Gals,

    Just a quick 1 before my real question, if my memory serves me right didnt we have a general section where we could ask general questions? I know this is a business forum but we have some highly intellegent people with real good advise here

    My question is about medical aid. My wife and i are planning a child. I have always been on medical aid until the last 14 months due to financial difficulty as i started my own business.

    I hear there are some medical aids that have waiting periods of 12 months for pregnancy and child births and some 3 months ?

    Any one with any advise ?

    Thanks guys
    I was in the same boat as you a year ago and can definitely recommend Medihelp for this!

    We signed up with another provider in January (I also work for myself, and cancelled Discovery 4 years ago since we don't actually use it and I don't support fraudulent companies), but they gave us some real bad service. After I signed up with them, I didn't hear anything back for 2 week - at which point I phoned them to find out if they actually accepted us as clients since they money went off my account. Their response was something like "Yes you were accepted but we had problems with email so no notification went out". wow.... They didn't bother sending me an SMS, fax or phone call, nor did they even bother retrying the emails as soon as the problem was resolved. 2 more weeks went by, i.e. we're in the next month and I was paying for 2 months already. We had no medical aid cards and when I had todo something at the hospital I had to pay for it out of my own pocket cause they couldn't locate our details on the system. Needless to say I cancelled.

    Anyhow, so we joined Medihelp on the Necesse plan. About 2 / 3 weeks after that my wife went in for her checkup with the GP (yes, she had to wait 3 months for this) and he said she's feeling a bit ill cause she's pregnant! He estimated her @ 4 - 6 weeks at that time. We didn't plan for this and was actually hoping for round about June or so. Anyhow, we phoned up Medihelp who said we needed to get a sonar to see if she is indeed pregnant and how long. They paid for it. We got the sonar, I think she was 8 weeks already. They said no problem, we'll still cover you.

    Our baby girl, Katinka was born on the 12th November 2010 in Arwyp Hospital, Medical aid paid in full.
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  12. #29
    Diamond Member Justloadit's Avatar
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    When changing medical aids, the new medical aid will accept you with out a waiting period. In my case I had no medical aid, but medical insurance, they went belly up 2 years ago, so I had no cover. When I joined Discovery, I could not claim anything for the first 3 months, and had to wait a considerable time if I had anything chronic. The reason, was that I had no medical aid before, and could be a chancer by joining Discovery to carry any chronic diseases. It is 2 years later, and must say that I am not at all impressed, there never seems to be enough cover when we wish to use the card.
    Victor - Knowledge is a blessing or a curse, your current circumstances make you decide!
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  13. #30
    Diamond Member tec0's Avatar
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    Well the problem is not the medical aid. I think of a medical aid as a hidden tax much like I think labour brokers are a hidden tax. If systems functioned normally there would be no need for a medical aid or labour brokers.

    For example let’s say we don’t use the lottery money for big expensive parties but rather use it to maintain hospitals and educate staff members to preform better, would I still need a medical aid. No I would be able to use a paid for "via taxes" state hospital. And the best care in the world.

    Like labour brokers, medical aids are symptom and not a solution. We effectively are paying double for our healthcare systems? Thus more money gets used for what reason exactly? Mismanagement?

    The trick is, we have a successful profitable lottery system, clearly we have lots of money tanks to tax payers and yet all we see is more degradation? How can that possibly be? Clearly something is not functioning and that needs to change.

    Sadly change will not come about via talking and speeches, no change is a feeling and every person needs to feel; "that yes now it is the time to try something new." Maybe then and only then will our healthcare improve and will crime come down from its all time high.

    The truth is how many private systems can we as a people maintain? And more importantly when will they take our money and run like all those before them?
    peace is a state of mind
    Disclaimer: everything written by me can be considered as fictional.

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