The Pretoria High Court lifted the curatorship on Thebemed Medical Aid Scheme on 27 May, the Council for Medical Schemes (CMS) has announced.
The regulator said it brought the application to lift the curatorship because the curator has restored Thebemed’s reserves to meet the minimum solvency requirement of 25% as provided for in regulation 29 of the Medical Schemes Act.
“To strengthen the scheme’s governance, a new board of trustees has been elected, with the assurance that members and beneficiaries will continue to be serviced and protected,” said CMS chief executive and registrar Dr Sipho Kabane.
According to the CMS’s most recent annual report, Thebemed had 25 736 beneficiaries in 2020, when its solvency ratio was 22.88%.
Thebemed was placed under provisional curatorship on 23 August 2019 following an ex parte application by Dr Kabane, who said the regulator was concerned about the scheme’s ability to pay members’ claims. The Pretoria High Court made the interim order final on 10 September 2019.
Thebemed’s solvency ratio had fallen to 4.2% by the end of March 2019, according to court papers.
At the time, Dr Kabane said the curatorship application was necessary because the scheme had failed to achieve a solvency ratio of 25% for eight years, despite numerous interventions by the regulator.
