- Fraud in the healthcare sector is rife and it leads to bad services and even patient deaths. In this Health Beat episode, community leader Xolani Mnisi shares the horrors sometimes faced at Tembisa Hospital on the East Rand.
- We also look at the government’s planned National Health Insurance (NHI) scheme. The NHI Bill promises to make good healthcare available to everyone. But, will the scheme escape the clutches of corruption?
- In 2021, Gauteng health department accountant Babita Deokaran was shot dead after uncovering a web of fraud at Tembisa Hospital. We spoke to the journalist who continued her fight against health corruption.
- We also delve into the ways patients and health workers falsely claim money from medical aids in the private healthcare sector and how schemes try to curb it.
In today’s newsletter, the Health Beat team breaks down why corruption in the health sector is so rife. Sign up.
Mohale Moloi worked at Bhekisisa as a television producer and health journalist from July 2021 to March 2024.
Mia Malan is the founder and editor-in-chief of Bhekisisa. She has worked in newsrooms in Johannesburg, Nairobi and Washington, DC, winning more than 30 awards for her radio, print and television work.
Jessica Pitchford is Bhekisisa's TV and multimedia editor. She's been a journalist since the early nineties and has reported on some pivotal events in South Africa’s political history, such as the country’s transition to democracy and the work of the Truth & Reconciliation Commission.
 could transform our failing healthcare system. But, many South Africans have little faith in the politicians who are supposed to look after the public purse. We take a look at how the residents of Tembisa cope with the results of corruption at their hospital, the systems that private medical aid schemes have in place to curb fraud, and how the planned NHI could benefit from being more transparent.){kind=link}