Opinion / Columnist
PSMAS Sleeping on Duty
12 Jun 2014 at 08:30hrs | Views
Premier Service Medical Aid Society (PSMAS) is giving a raw to its membership in the post Cuthbert Dube era. At the moment most medical service providers have lost faith in the corporate governance of PSMAS.
Doctors are demanding a core-payment of $20 for consultation, advising you to claim your hard-earned cash from the cash-strapped society later. Most Pharmacies are refusing to give drugs on prescriptions from PSMAS demanding cash from such members. They are singing from the same hymnbook with private doctors who require the rest of these clients to pay cash for drugs and make claims later.
Meanwhile, patients can only access doctors' help from Premier Services Medical Aid Society clinics. Unfortunately, the multitudinous numbers of clients who flood all clinics overwhelms these. Clients have to endure long and tedious queues while groaning in excruciating pains of illness. After getting the prescription, drugs are in short supply as the PSMAS pharmacies are hard hit by acute shortages of drugs due to immense demand, thereby leaving members with minimum options except to fork-out cash to buy from other pharmacies.
This state of affairs defeats the whole essence of contributing to a society that does not cushion you in times of real need. Medical aid is a form of insurance and health is a primary requirement for humanity. In view of these ugly facts on the ground, where are we going as a nation? A healthy population is a pre-requisite to national development. Therefore we are compromising workers' productivity by watching this rot to proceed unperturbed in our eyes.
The mind-boggling issue here is that members' subscriptions remain constant and paid to the society. In spite of that level of commitment by the clients, they continue to face a raw deal from PSMAS. We urge authorities to intervene now, and restore sanity or the poorly paid civil servants who constitute the bulk of the membership will continue to languish in ill-health.
This would impact on public interest, as civil servants are there to serve the generality of the public in various government departments. Therefore the PSMAS turmoil is a threat to national interest. A healthy civil service is the bedrock of national development as well as proper implementation of Government Polices.
Another perplexing matter is that, the former PSMAS Chief Executive Officer Cuthbert Dube, who is infamous for ripping the organisation through earning a salary which was in excess of over $500 000 per month is demanding a salary back-dated to four months using similar obscene rates. This is amazing and lack of social morality in robbing the struggling membership of their hard-earned cash.
Surely Dube's actions demonstrate unbridled greed that should not go unchallenged, lest we permit insanity to rob the nation of its integrity. Dube should be thoughtful and considerate to public interest. We urge him never to be driven by greedy, and the propensity to defraud the public utility of the little resources it still retains to save the struggling members. Members are dying due to lack of medical care by the bankrupt PSMAS, while he is busy scheming on how he can squeeze out and pocket more cash from this embattled organisation. As if what he earned through devious means was not adequate.
PSMAS members are busy contemplating whether it is prudent to remain clients of such an artificially ailing entity, which considers their prime interest as a peripheral matter.
Urgent action is needed now to re-activate proper function of systems at PSMAS.
Source - Suitable Kajau
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