EDITORIAL: Medical schemes regulator should withdraw defamatory attack

The medical schemes regulator has accused one of its most outspoken critics of paying media outlets to run negative articles about it without presenting a shred of evidence. It is playing a dangerous game.

Two weeks ago, the Council for Medical Schemes (CMS) published a 30-page report in response to an eight-page lawyer’s letter from the Board of Healthcare Funders (BHF) accusing it of abusing its power and stalling key reforms. As previously reported by this newspaper, the CMS alleged in its report that the BHF used “paid media to attack the integrity” of the council and its personnel. The claim was immediately denied by the BHF and to this day has not been substantiated by the CMS.

The regulator was well within its rights to take time to consider its rebuttal to the BHF, which was published two months after it received the legal letter. But it has overstepped the mark in launching a defamatory attack on the media.

The media plays a vital role in holding the powerful to account, be they politicians, organs of state or the captains of industry. Accusations of graft — even when they are patently absurd and devoid of all evidence — cause great harm. They undermine public trust in the media’s work and whittle away a defining feature of any functioning democracy.

The CMS is a statutory body charged with protecting the interests of SA’s 9-million medical scheme beneficiaries. As a watchdog agency it should be beyond reproach and not resort to tactics that suggest it has something to hide. If it cannot substantiate its claims of media graft, we invite the CMS to withdraw the allegation.