Obtaining membership certificate under difficult circumstances

Firstly, let me say that the Call Centre agent who attempted to assist me was polite & courteous, but largely stuck to a script and was more concerned with losing her job than with helping me.

My partner needs to obtain a certificate of membership in order to prove when he was last with a medical aid scheme, as he now wishes to go back onto a scheme after an absence of 7 years. Obviously this entails a late joiner penalty - which, if we can prove he was previously on a scheme would be 25% but will increase to 50% if we cannot obtain proof - making it unaffordable (even for a basic hospital plan). Regrettably, when he was previously with Discovery, his then partner was the main member and he was on her membership as her spouse.

It seems that he cannot even request the certificate himself - the request *must* come from the main member. Whilst I do appreciate the logic behind this to a certain extent, what does one do in the case of an acrimonious dissolution of a marriage/relationship where - as in this case - she wouldn't even throw water on him if he was on fire? There has surely got to be some leeway in certain situations to allow for certain circumstances? Or is he now doomed to be penalised forevermore by medical aid schemes in this country because he was unfortunate enough to have a relationship that happened to end badly?

Surely, there must be someone with the authority at Discovery to make a decision in a case like this, who can assist us? All we want is proof that at some point, he was a member - surely to goodness that's not a huge ask?