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| << January31, 2005 - Turtle Essays edition no 119 dated 31.1.2005 |
February14, 2005 - Turtle Essays edition no 121 dated 14.2.2005 >> |
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Turtle Essays Edition no 120 dated 7th February 2005 Love to Travel? Find out how to make your money go further! Get your copy of ???The Travel Secrets Guide??? and start saving today! http://hop.clickbank.net/?Brerrabbit/infodawg ** Looking for cheap airtickets to all destinations. Try us! http://service.bfast.com/bfast/click?bfmid=26917872&siteid=41315606&bfpage=homepage" ** Do you live in an area where droughts occur? Visit : http://www.landscapingsecrets.com/?hop=brerrabbit to find out how to plan your low water garden. ** In this edition Editor's Blurb Medical Matters Lotto in South Africa ** Editor's Blurb Hi there folks! Welcome to all my new and regular readers. This week I have decided to dig a little below the surface of our scenery and beautiful country and expose some of the matters which have been in our press of late. The opinions expressed are mine although the facts are common knowledge. I hope you enjoy them. I would appreciate it if you could let me know what you think of the articles and if I should continue to write this type of article. My aim is however not to cause a lot of drama but to advise visitors to our lovely country what to expect when they get here. We DO have our problems here as well. Thanks once again! See you all next week. Geoff Fairman ** Medical Matters Doctors, dentists and pharmacies are up in arms here in South Africa. New laws that have been promulgated recently, in an attempt to make medical care more accessible to the general public , is causing the stir. Doctors who have passed all their courses including those covering the dispensing of medicines, have been told that they need to rewrite the dispensing course or their dispensing licences will be revoked. Of course the cost of this course will be for the doctor's account as well. The doctors have refused to rewrite the course and this has badly affected some of the country towns where there are no pharmacies. People can visit the doctor but have to drive hundreds of miles to get their medicines. That's not the only problem! If the doctor dispenses without the licence, which many of them are doing to assist their patients, medical aids refuse to cover the patients claim for the medicines. Pharmacies have also ended up on the wrong end of this matter. Prices of medicines have to have one exit price from the factory to the patient. For example, a medicine sold at R100.00 by the factory will be sold at the same price to the patient at the pharmacy. Pharmacist are allowed to add on a laid down percentage calculated on a two tier system. Medicines below R100.00, and, medicines above R100.00. Of course, the outcome is that many pharmacies have run into financial difficulties as their profit margins have been severely undermined by the new rules. Many small country towns have lost their pharmacies due to the above and many pharmacists have lost their livelihoods. The pharmacies have not taken this matter lying down and have taken the matter as high as the appeal court to get the law changed. Their most recent appeal was upheld, but the pharmacies were stifled by the government when they appealed the matter at the Constitutional court. This had the effect that although the pharmacies had won their case and could go back to charging the public their normal prices for medicines they in fact could not do so as the matter had not yet been finalised in the Constitutional court. In the meantime the public will pay the laid down prices plus all the added levies etc that the pharmacies have added on to keep themselves solvent. For the public it's a benefit, but also a worry , because, if the government can close pharmacies and doctors on a whim, what else can they do to business here in SA. By the time this mess has been sorted out hospitals such as Tygerberg will also have to close their doors. Budgets for all government hospitals have been severely cut and they have had to make do with what they are given. A hospital such as the world famous Red Cross Children's in Rondebosch has to generate its own funds by means of radiothons, fetes and collections to make ends meet. Many of the hospital services they once offered are no longer available as their equipment has been broken for years and with no budget cannot be repaired. Tygerberg has started a refurbishment program of their wards but still have a major problem when it comes to security. As fast as they replace equipment it gets stolen. Some of their linen has been found in flea markets in Spain. In South Africa public hospitals are obliged to take all patients brought to them irrespective whether they can pay for their treatment or not. This has a limiting effect on what the hospitals can generate in funds. On weekends staff in the public hospitals sometimes fear for their lives as they treat drunken members of rival gangs that have been injured in fights. Often the rival gang members continue their fights in the corridors of the hospitals. As a result many of the trained medical personnel move to greener pastures. The unfortunate fact is that all this could be avoided if white collar crime could be controlled. Money that should end up in the hospital budgets is ending up in some corrupt officials pocket or not being spent at all due to the incompetency of the offical concerned. There, however, appears to be some light at the end of the tunnel as the Scorpions who are investigating many of the scams bring the culprits to book. We the people of South Africa need your support in sorting out our many problems. How can we help you may ask? Visit Cape Town and South Africa in your droves! ** Lotto in South Africa Strange things are happening here in South Africa. Shortly after 1994 when gambling laws were changed Lotto was introduced by the government as a way of collecting money for charity and also to give the public a lottery. During the years under the National Party rule gambling in any form other than horse racing was a big NO NO. When Lotto was introduced millions of Rand for charity were collected and nothing at all was distributed. After many letters of complaint and many questions by the public as to how the money collected by Uthingo for charity was being distributed money started to flow back to the people via the various charities who had registered to receive donations. Here and there some strange donations were made. A rugby union was donated a huge sum of money while the poor people who needed the cash got nothing. It appears that of late money collected by Lotto for charity is being distributed more quickly than in the past. On the other side of the coin there have been many new millionaires created, which is great! People have won large sums of money on single tickets where numbers were selected from car number plates, dreams and various other means. Unfortunately many of the people who have become millionaires were people who in the past had been extremely poor. They could scarcely handle a budget of R100.00 per week and have now got to control millions. In many instances they have been robbed of their winnings by unscrupulous friends and family. One old man was robbed of a million rand for a lift into town as he had no clue how much money it was that he was being asked for. In another instance a domestic worker asked her employer to buy her a lotto ticket and won millions. The unscrupulous employer when finding out about the big win by her employee claimed the large prize for herself when asked to redeem the ticket by the worker. After a number of weeks the employee found out about her big win and claimed her money back from the employer. By the time she took some action the employer had spent over R5 million of the prize. This week the newspapers report that a new ticket scam could be sticking its ugly head out. A man living in Durban won R25.00 when three of his numbers were drawn. On presenting his ticket to claim his prize he was told that his ticket had already been paid out in Pretoria. Durban and Pretoria are in different provinces and the man had not been out of Durban and still had the ticket in his possession. How is it possible that such a thing can happen ? If this has happened for a small amount, could it have happened to others with larger winning tickets? Over the years in other countries there have been scams where balls have been tampered with, but to our knowledge that has not happened here in South Africa yet. Another possible problem is that Lotto winners here in South Africa have the choice of divulging their luck to the public or keeping their winnings private. It seems strange that so many people can win the jackpot especially when large prizes are on offer. I find it extremely difficult to choose three correct numbers let alone six! How are the winners doing it? One often wonders if the winnings are legitimate as the general public are not advised who all the big winners are. Personally I would not advertise my luck but who knows, to keep matters above board this should possibly be happening. After all the public paid good money for their tickets and should know where its going. What are your thoughts on the matter? Send your emails to: Geoff@turtlesa.com ** Turtle Travels new blog is online now. Latest Topic : It's raining in Cape Town http://turtleessays.blogspot.com * Like to have your own rose garden. Find out how to do it from an expert. Here is his link: http://hop.clickbank.net/?brerrabbit/mcplants ** For my personal details, contact address, and warnings regarding products advertised in this ezine please read the disclaimers which can be found at: http://www.turtlesa.com/Disclaimer.html See you all soon Geoff Fairman ** |
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| << January31, 2005 - Turtle Essays edition no 119 dated 31.1.2005 |
February14, 2005 - Turtle Essays edition no 121 dated 14.2.2005 >> |
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