By: Justicia Shipena 

Health minister Kalumbi Shangula says a bill which will improve the medical and dental act and regulate private doctors will be introduced in the next session of parliament.

The National Assembly will resume in September after taking a break this month. His comments follow after concerns were raised about private medical practices in the country. The bill is called the health professionals bill, which he says will become an act.

According to Shangula, the act will have some leverage in controlling the health profession in Namibia.

“Having observed the undesirable situation, the ministry is working on the improvement of the current medical and dental act to be able to have better control. There is a law, a bill which will be introduced hopefully during the next parliament, which is called the health professions bill. It will then become a health professions act which then repels the current acts which are in place which don’t control the concern of private medical practices,” said Shangula.

“Once it becomes an act will have some leverage in controlling the health profession in Namibia. So it is on the way; it is going to come, and then when it comes, I think the government will be in a better position to control the mushrooming of health professions practices even in places where they may not be required,” he said.

He stated that the bill is 99 per cent complete, adding that it had previously made its way to parliament but was removed. 

“It was introduced in parliament before, but it had to be withdrawn because certain provisions had to be reworked, and that process has been completed,” he adds.

He further said the concerns of private medical practices in the country are not new, adding that the health ministry does not regulate and control businesses. 

“The ministry of health does not regulate it because practice is a business and is handled as such. Although it provides health service is as in essence a business and the ministry does not control businesses.”

He continued by saying that for foreigners to work or set up a business in Namibia, a working visa is required.

“In order for a person to practice as a health professional, they must be registered with the Health Professions Council of Namibia,” said Shangula.

The Health Professions Council of Namibia is a body that determines and maintains minimum educational standards leading to the registration of health professionals set as well as maintaining ethical standards.

Shangula stated that currently, there is no law which effectively outlaws such establishments.

“But we have heard about these concerns some time, and we are not oblivion to that. Currently, there is no law which will effectively outlaw such establishments of practice.”

In 2011, the mushrooming of backdoor clinical practices, primarily by foreign doctors, was a growing concern, and Namibian medical doctors in public service had called for its regulation.

In 2017, former health minister Dr Bernard Haufiku at a media briefing, announced that the Health Professions Council of Namibia Bill would be tabled in parliament by mid-February that year.

At that time, the registrar of the Health Professions Council of Namibia, Cornelius Weyulu, observed that most foreign doctors who set up private practices locally are gunning medical aid funds without serving the ordinary people.

A year later, it was reported that there was confusion on who was to blame for delaying a proposed bill. The bill was aimed at tightening controls over the health profession and giving the government more control over the registration and licensing of health professionals, regulating health education institutions, and governing pharmacists.

At that time, Haufiku pointed fingers at the then attorney general Sacky Shanghala for sitting on the proposed law. 

Shanghala, however, refused to take the blame, insisting that he had sent the draft bill to Haufiku in November 2017.

justicia@thevillager.com.na