I'm sorry your mom is in pain, but our department closes at 4pm and we can't help you till Monday...

My mom was recently admitted to hospital after joining Momentum Health in March 2017. Momentum were not happy to authorise the admission even though the 3 month waiting period has passed. Now, my mom is on the Ingwe low cost medical aid for the main reason that she doesn't earn a lot of money. I then paid the R17000 required for 3 days stay in the hospital. In the meantime they had to do a medical history check - which we're fine with.

It turns out she has a gallstone which needs to be removed - after I also paid for the ultrasound scan to be done myself.

Momentum told us they would contact her GP and the attending Physician. After checking with both of them, neither of them received the papers for investigation. I then sent them through to the doctors myself and eventually drove out there to collect the papers myself to get them through to momentum. And once I had and they had all the documents - the response was - and I'm paraphrasing:

"I'm sorry that your mom has been in pain for 3 days while we've done nothing, and I'm also sorry that there's nothing that we can do for you for another 3 days while you wait for our staff to come in again after the weekend - but it's 4 o'lock on a Friday now and there isn't anyone that can help you."

It's ridiculous!