Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang should leave the private healthcare sector alone and focus on fixing the crumbling public healthcare sector, United SA Pharmacies (USAP) said yesterday.

Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang should leave the private healthcare sector alone and focus on fixing the crumbling public healthcare sector, United SA Pharmacies (USAP) said yesterday.

While the private healthcare sector had been asked by the Health Department to comment on draft amendments to the Medicines and Related Substances Act and the National Health Act, USAP was sceptical of the department's commitment to substantively consider these proposals.

"Our experience with the Department of Health over the issue of the pharmacy dispensing fee for medicines has left us cynical in the extreme," USAP chairman Julian Solomon said in a statement.

"It is time the private healthcare sector put a stake in the ground and said: leave us alone and focus on fixing the crumbling public healthcare sector."

The proposed amendments had wide-ranging implications for delivery by the full range of private healthcare providers, including pharmacies, pharmaceutical companies, doctors, hospitals and medical aids, he said. - Sapa