The Government Employees Medical Scheme (GEMS) says it will wait for Dr Sipho Bvuma and his Oncologist to resubmit their request.
The scheme says an expert panel will consider the new application. This comes after the family of Dr Bvuma, a brain cancer patient from Soweto, claims the scheme refused to pay for a life-saving drug worth more than half a million rand.
GEMS allegedly told Dr Bvuma, who’s a doctor at the Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital, that the drug is too expensive and that due to the advanced nature of the cancer – it does not believe the drug will save his life.
Dr Bvuma has won a court challenge forcing the scheme to authorise the treatment.
“What is going to happen is that we will wait for the doctors to resubmit how they want the patient, our member, to be treated going forward. And then we will refer the new application to our Oncology expert panel. Our Oncology expert panel is made of Oncologists, they are specialists. We basically take funding decisions on the basis of how they advise us,” says GEMS CEO Dr Stan Moloabi.
