HR Plan
9 March 2006
Today, we are presenting to you two very important issues in the health
sector. We have the final draft of the Human Resource Plan for Health, which
has been developed through an extensive consultation process with stakeholders.
This draft is being released with the aim of enabling stakeholders to engage
with the document before it is officially launched on the World Health Day, 7
April.
The second issue is the announcement of the new draft dispensing fee. As you
know, the Constitutional Court delivered its judgement on the medicine pricing
regulations in September last year. The Court identified a few minor defects in
the regulations and specified changes that had to be made. These changes have
been made and gazetted within the deadline set by the Constitutional Court.
On the actual dispensing fee that may be charged by pharmacists, the Court
ruled that the Pricing Committee should reconsider the current dispensing fee
of 26% of the single exit price capped at R26. The Committee was required to
provide reasonable opportunity for inputs and take these into consideration in
determining the appropriate fee. The court also put an obligation on the
pharmacists to supply all the information required by the pricing committee to
conduct this exercise.
The pricing committee invited interested parties to make submissions and the
deadline was extended to 20 December last year to allow for extensive
participation. All parties involved in the court action made submissions and
engaged with the pricing committee.
As a parallel process, the Department of Health distributed questionnaires
to all pharmacies in the country requesting specific information relating to
the income and expenditure of pharmacies which is important in setting a fee
that facilitate the viability of the retail pharmacy industry while meeting
Government's objective of increasing access to affordable medicine.
Unfortunately, the response to this survey was very poor despite the efforts
made to assist pharmacists to fill in the questionnaire. The pricing committee
evaluated all the information available to arrive at the draft fee we are
announcing today.
It is important to appreciate that this draft dispensing fee only relates to
the activity of dispensing only at the dispensary section of the pharmacy. This
activity includes reading and evaluating a prescription, picking and packing
the medicine and handing the medicine over to the patient with an appropriate
advice. The committee also took account of the costs related to the electronic
claims from medical schemes in the calculation of the fee.
The pricing committee has presented their recommendation and I have decided
to invite comment on the draft fee. The draft regulations will be published in
the Government Gazette within the next few weeks. Because of the urgent need to
bring certainty to the industry, we have decided to invite comment for a period
of one month after the publication of the draft regulations in the
Gazette.
The draft dispensing fee:
* Does not differentiate between over the counter and prescription medicines
(but it should be borne in mind that schedule zero medicines has been given a
time limited exemption),
* Is a maximum fee and therefore a lower dispensing fee can be charged at the
discretion of the pharmacist or pharmacy owner,
* Is inclusive of VAT.
The dispensing fee must be calculated as follows:
* Where the single exit price of a medicine is less than seventy five rands,
the dispensing fee, is a total of seven rands plus 28% of the single exit price
of the medicine.
* Where the single exit price of a medicine is seventy five rands or more but
less than R150, the dispensing fee is a total of R23 plus seven percent of the
single exit price of the medicine.
* Where the single exit price of a medicine is R150 or more but less than R250,
the dispensing fee is a total of R26 plus five percent of the single exit price
of the medicine.
* Where the single exit price of a medicine is R250 or more, the dispensing fee
is a total of R31 plus three percent of the single exit price of the
medicine.
On the HR Plan, the significant changes have been made on chapter four and
five which begin to set targets for training of health personnel to meet the
rising demand. Determining targets for training must be based on the capacity
of health sciences education and training institutions to produce the required
numbers.
Government is making provision for a significant increase in the total
health workforce during the next five years as it will be demonstrated in the
presentation by Dr Mahlati. It is essential that planning takes a long term
view in addressing the challenges relating to supply and distribution of health
professionals. This is also necessitated by the fact that training periods are
relatively long, averaging four years but increasing to between 10 and 15 years
in the case of specialist medical training.
We request stakeholders who may still have further input on this revised
document to submit these to the Department before 24 March 2006.
Enquiries:
Sibani Mngadi
Director: Media Liaison
Tel: (012) 312 0763
Cell: 082 772 0161
Issued by: Department of Health
9 March 2006
Source: Department of Health (http://www/doh.gov.za)
