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President's Communication SASES

2021 SASES Presidents Report

Presidents Report 2021 - The South African Society of Endoscopic Surgeons

As a Surgeon in a respiratory disease pandemic, our profession and, often our patients, had to take a back seat to the burden of respiratory disease that overwhelmed not only our healthcare system but also most others around the globe. Face-to-face meetings have become distant memory. It would be easy for surgical societies to lose momentum during these unprecedented times. We were forced to cancel traveling fellowships and face-to-face Exco meetings, but the cogs of the Society kept turning and I am pleased to report back on the hard work that has gone into the ongoing success of our beloved Society.

Your Exco

The new Exco was voted into office at a special virtual AGM held on 15 October 2020. We said farewell to our Past President, Dick Brombacher, treasurer, Dino Sofianos, and the Exco member in charge of Travelling Fellowships, Martin Brand. They all left big shoes to fill.

Your new Exco was elected and roles allocated:

  • President: Emile Coetzee
  • Past President: Eugenio Panieri
  • Vice President and ERAS: Ravi Oodit
  • Treasurer: Grahame Reimers
  • Secretary: Bernie Maree
  • Minimal Access Surgery: Zach Koto
  • Training Centre: Alp Numanoglu
  • Travelling Fellowships and HIG: Heather Bougard
  • Metabolic Surgery: Jean Lubbe
  • Website and communication: Jaco Botes

It’s been a tough task for the new members to get to know the inner workings of the Exco, as a lot is lost with the shorter, virtual meetings that we as Exco had to revert to. I am proud to say that the new Exco members have worked beyond their calling!

Travelling Fellowships

All the Travelling Fellowships had to be cancelled for 2 years in a row. Fortunately these will resume in 2022. Sponsorships have been confirmed and the supporting Units looking forward to receiving our fellows.

Training Centre

The Training Centre at the Red Cross Children’s Hospital has resumed with courses. Unfortunately regulations have forced the Training Centre to run at only approximately 50% of capacity. Since 2018, there has been no financial support from industry, but donations for sutures were received from BBRAUN and MEDTRONIC.

The Laparoscopic Cholecystectomy, Appendicectomy and Suture course is most popular and is a prerequisite for entry into the FCS final examination. The Training Centre will host the last of these courses for 2021 on 28 and 29 October 2021.

Training and Webinars We must thank Eugenio Panieri for the tremendous effort that he put into the Virtual Meeting in September. The format was fantastic, and the online platform worked without glitches. We are all Zoomed Out and the Society made a conscious decision not to continue with our quarterly webinars that we had in the past. This will resume 2022.

Private Practice Matters

Your Society is doing its best to look after the advancement of endoscopic surgery for its members and the benefit of the patients of South Arica.

MEDSCHEME HMB programme: MEDSCHEME is in the process of introducing a Hospital Management Benefit Programme to streamline admissions and remove the need to obtain pre-authorization for certain procedures. SASES has been working tirelessly with MEDSCHEME to establish protocols for this project that will benefit our members and their patients.

New Reimbursement Model SURGICOM is embarking on a massive undertaking to update the Coding model with funders to be more in line with colleagues in other disciplines and representative of the work and hours that it takes to be a good, caring surgeon. SASES will be actively involved in the establishment and negotiation codes for laparoscopic procedures.

HIG

The Hernia Interest Group is an active part of our society and have accomplished so much over the last few years. Heather Bougard will update you with the workings of HIG in her Presidents report. We urge every member of SASES and HIG to continue to support the South African Hernia Registry. Please remember to log into www.higsa.co.za and enter your cases.

Metabolic Surgery

Jeanne Lubbe, with the support of Zach Koto and Jaco Botes, have taken on the mammoth task of making metabolic surgery available to more South Africans. Our country has a massive burden of metabolic disease due to obesity. You may be aware of the alternative training and accreditation pathway that was previously established through PROVENTI.

A subcommittee was created within SASES, namely The South African Metabolic Medicine Subcommittee/Society (SAMMS). This subcommittee/society has arisen from the need to create an academic home for obesity medicine and surgery in South Africa and is also affiliated to SEMDSA (Society of Endocrinology, Metabolism and Diabetes of South Africa). The first SAMMS meeting was held on 19 May 2021. Seventy-two participants from SASES and SEMDSA attended. The working members are represented by both surgeons and endocrinologists from SASES and SEMDSA, and as first projects took on international affiliation with the ASMBS (American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery), as well as setting up a Global Fee structure for the most common metabolic procedures in South Africa. Ongoing work will be to establish a truly South African accreditation system, and a dedicated metabolic surgery session/day at the SEMDSA 2022 meeting in Lagoon Beach. The vision of SASES is for training and accreditation of Metabolic Surgery in South Africa to move to the academic institutions though a fellowship training program.

Website

Our website had a significant upgrade. We aim to keep information on the website, as well as emails to the member as relevant as possible. Members are encouraged to visit our site at www.sases.org, create an account and enjoy the contents that is published.

We are excited to take these and other ventures of our Society forward to continue to improve access to laparoscopic surgery and the surgical outcomes of your patients.

Yours truly,

Emile Coetzee

Medscheme-logo
Latest News, News SASES

Medscheme approves Proventi Accreditation for Bariatric Surgery

SASES is proud to announce its efforts to represent members in discussions with Medical Schemes, and motivation regarding the performance of metabolic surgery has been fruitful.

We are pleased to inform you that the Medscheme Health Policy Unit (HPU), in addition to Discovery, has decided to include the Proventi accredited doctors and centres/hospitals in the Medscheme Bariatric funding protocol, effective 15 March 2021.

SASES will be the conduit partner between Proventi accredited metabolic surgeons and Medscheme with regular updates to Medscheme on which surgeons and centres are (a) currently accredited, (b) re-accredited or (c) disaccredited.

Proventi, aside from the accreditation, will conduct the quality assurance on an annual basis and immediately report to SASES the status of accredited surgeons and centres.

Proventi International Accreditation

It is the intention of all parties that the International Proventi Accreditation is eventually handed over to a South African body. This will likely be a sub-committee of the College of Surgeons of South Africa or a University based group.

As we endeavour to advance metabolic surgery in South Africa, we would welcome experienced Bariatric Surgeons to contact SASES to facilitate their accreditation along the established platforms.

Talks with GEMS is ongoing and we will keep you updated. Further information regarding Proventi accreditation may be obtained on the Proventi website http://proventi.org/.

Latest News SASES

COVID 19

We realise you may be bombarded with information related to the COVID 19 outbreak.
These are useful links to information that may be useful in your efforts to manage the outbreak in your area.

 

Downloads are available on our website

 

COVID-Surgery Recommendations and Risk Calculator for Non-Emergency Surgery During the COVID-19 Pandemic (V2.26).

Article Link:
Keeping the Coronavirus from Infecting Health-Care Workers

27 March 2020: Live Video:  Everything You Should Know about COVID-19

Latest guideline from Royal surgical colleges, The association of Surgeons of Great Briton and Ireland, Association of upper GI surgeons. They recommend full PPE for all surgical procedures and consider all surgical patients as Covid 19 positive

Article Link:
Why Surgeons Don't Want to Operate Right Now:   A rising death toll among doctors in Italy provides a warning about the dangers of poor protection and testing.
by Therese Raphael

The Toughest Triage — Allocating Ventilators in a Pandemic

Critical Care Management of Patient Confirmed with COVID-19

TRIAL OPPORTUNITY:
Outcomes of elective cancer surgery during the COVID-19 pandemic crisis

Guidelines for PPE Use During The Coronavirus Disease 2019 (Covid-19) Western Cape Government: Health

Theatre Protocol for suspected/confirmed SARScov2 infection

International Pulmonologist’s Consensus on Covid-19

What we do when a COVID-19 patient needs an operation: operating room preparation and guidance

 

President’s Communication Archive SASES

Update on SASES and Bariatric Surgery

Dear Members

The SASES Exco has been reviewing the position of bariatric and metabolic surgery in South Africa with the view to supporting this very necessary surgery.

From the outset the SASES Exco has undertaken to drive bariatric and metabolic surgery in the public sector and is excited to note the growth of metabolic surgery in the University of Stellenbosch; more recently New Somerset Hospital in Cape Town, the Steve Biko Academic Hospital in Pretoria and Sefako Makgatho Health Sciences University in Pretoria.

On the private sector front to date the only route to financing through medical aids has been to have fully accredited surgeons doing the procedure. This not only entails a fully accredited surgeon but more importantly the whole centre and support staff. One understands full well why the medical aids will only deal with accredited surgeons as it is an operation which can have potentially large financial consequences if not done properly.

Aquilo with Proventi are now in a position to offer a second accreditation model to the South African private surgeon. To date the only accreditation system has been through SASSO under the guidance of Prof Tessa van der Merwe and her team but with Aquilo and Proventi, who bring to the party a huge international experience in bariatric surgery, the South African surgeon will now have choices as to whom he or she approaches for accreditation.

As a Society we have evaluated the international accreditation offered by Proventi and confirm that, in terms of quality and standing, it is on par with the local SASSO accreditation. We are excited that the surgeon now has more choice. We believe that this will open up the field wider for more surgeons to be accredited, be it either through Aquilo/Proventi or SASSO, to the benefit of patients in the private sector.

Kind regards

Dick Brombacher
President
SASES Exco

Previous Events SASES

Live Bariatric Workshop

Department of Surgery

Sefako Makgatho Health Sciences University/Dr George Mukhari Hospital Faculty Management and Staff: Prof. Zac Koto, Prof. Heine van der Walt, Dr. Anel Lengton

Date:                      Friday 15th February 2019

Time:                     7:00am to close of day

Venue:                   S113, 1st floor, Clin path building, SMU campus.

Latest News, News SASES

‘NHI will be an unmitigated disaster’

 

“Despite its proven incompetence at managing public service organisations, the government is determined to create a vast centralised healthcare system. Instead of failing only some South Africans, as it does now, government healthcare will soon fail all South Africans,” wrote Ivo Vegter in Daily Maverick; 27 August 2018.

“The government keeps proving that it is incapable of running large organisations. South African Airways, Eskom, Transnet, the Post Office, the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa, Portnet, and a host of other state-owned enterprises are beset with critical problems.

“This reality has not, however, given government officials any pause in forging ahead with a proposed National Health Insurance (NHI) scheme.

 

“Minister of Health, Aaron Motsoaledi, is sure the government is capable of running universal healthcare, but the primary government website, www.gov.za, on which these bills are supposed to be available, was down and returning '502: Bad Gateway' errors at the time of writing.

 

"Almost no aspect of healthcare will remain outside the centralised control of the NHI Fund. Its scale and complexity will be simply enormous. This vast new bureaucracy will have power to contract for and procure virtually all medical products and services in the country.

“Such a bureaucracy will likely employ hundreds of thousands of people, and far from reducing costs, will layer additional costs on top of existing private and public healthcare spending. It will inevitably be inefficient, as government bureaucracies always are, and will present significant new opportunities for patronage and corruption,” wrote Vegter.

 

Practitioners likely to leave - study

 

Health practitioners in South Africa are very sceptical about government’s proposed National Health Insurance (NHI) plan, with many considering migrating to other countries if the ambitious project is implemented - according to a report released by trade union Solidarity.

Nicolien Welthagen, a senior researcher at the Solidarity Research Institute, said the research found that practitioners feel there has not been sufficient consultation with them on the government’s plans to implement the NHI.

72,6% of practitioners indicated that they have not been consulted during the process, while only 38,8% of general practitioners feel that they have sufficient knowledge of the NHI.

 

More than 80% of healthcare workers believe that health practitioners will leave SA if government steams ahead with the roll-out of the NHI and 81,7% of the respondents indicated that they believe the NHI will destabilise the health sector.

Solidarity cautioned that the concern about healthcare in SA, in light of the NHI, must not be regarded lightly.

This was the reason why Solidarity Occupational Guild for Healthcare Practitioners organised “a crisis summit” involving experts from the healthcare environment and economists.

According to Dirk Hermann, chief operations officer of Solidarity, healthcare practitioners now need support.

 

NHI will ‘nationalise’ healthcare

The proposed NHI legislation will effectively lead to the nationalisation of health services if doctors and other providers are forced to contract to the NHI - Michael Settas (Free Market Foundation) a consultant specialising in the health market industry at a media briefing in Sandton on 15 August. While universal health coverage is a laudable objective, the need for an NHI is questionable, as South Africa’s spending on healthcare is already high, and the public service should be improved to deliver better care.

 

 

 

Archive, Previous Events SASES

SASES AGM Notice 14 September 2018

Enquiries:
Susan Parkes
Tel: 011-717-2601
Fax: 086-662-4320
info@sases.org

Postnet Suite 199, P/Bag X2600
Houghton 2041 Website: www.sases.org

NOTICE IS GIVEN FOR THE SASES AGM TO BE HELD ON FRIDAY 14 SEPTEMBER 2018
AT SASES 2018 – VINEYARD HOTEL, NEWLANDS, CAPE TOWN AT 11H30 - 12H30

PROPOSED AGENDA

1. Welcome and Apologies
2. Confirmation of minutes of AGM held on 7 August 2017
3. Matters arising (if any)
4. President’s Report
5. Report back from Travelling Fellows
6. Treasurer’s Report
7. General
8. Date of next Meeting

As this is a voting year, we welcome nominations for members of the Executive Committee.

The closing date for submission of your vote is
FRIDAY 7 SEPTEMBER 2018 and should be sent by email to the Secretariat at info@sases.org or susanparkes@mweb.co.za.

The successful candidates will be announced at the SASES AGM during the Congress in September 2018.

SASES EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE 2017/18

PRESIDENT: Dr D Brombacher PAST PRESIDENT: Dr M Naidoo, VICE PRESIDENT: Prof E Panieri
TREASURER: Dr D Sofianos, SECRETARIAT: Dr E Coetzee
MEMBERS: Dr H Bougard, Dr M Brand, Prof Z Koto, Dr R Oodit, Prof A Numanoglu, Dr G Reimers

 

 

 

Latest Events, President's Communication, President’s Communication Archive SASES

Update on SASES and Bariatric Surgery

Dear Members

 

The SASES Exco has been reviewing the position of bariatric and metabolic surgery in South Africa with the view to supporting this very necessary surgery.

From the outset the SASES Exco has undertaken to drive bariatric and metabolic surgery in the public sector and is excited to note the growth of metabolic surgery in the University of Stellenbosch; more recently New Somerset Hospital in Cape Town, the Steve Biko Academic Hospital in Pretoria and Sefako Makgatho Health Sciences University in Pretoria.

 

On the private sector front to date the only route to financing through medical aids has been to have fully accredited surgeons doing the procedure. This not only entails a fully accredited surgeon but more importantly the whole centre and support staff. One understands full well why the medical aids will only deal with accredited surgeons as it is an operation which can have potentially large financial consequences if not done properly.

 

Aquilo with Proventi are now in a position to offer a second accreditation model to the South African private surgeon. To date the only accreditation system has been through SASSO under the guidance of Prof Tessa van der Merwe and her team but with Aquilo and Proventi, who bring to the party a huge international experience in bariatric surgery, the South African surgeon will now have choices as to whom he or she approaches for accreditation.

 

As a Society we have evaluated the international accreditation offered by Proventi and confirm that, in terms of quality and standing, it is on par with the local SASSO accreditation. We are excited that the surgeon now has more choice. We believe that this will open up the field wider for more surgeons to be accredited, be it either through Aquilo/Proventi or SASSO, to the benefit of patients in the private sector.

 

Kind regards

Dick Brombacher
President
SASES Exco

 

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