We are committed to protecting and respecting your privacy when dealing with your Personal Information. This privacy notice sets out the basis on which any Personal Information we collect from you, or that you provide to us, is used, stored, disclosed, and processed by us. Please read the following carefully to understand our practices regarding your Personal Information, how we will treat it and your rights in relation to that information. By providing your Personal Information to us or by using our services, website or other online or digital platform(s) you are accepting or consenting to the practices as described or referred to in this privacy notice.
When we refer to ‘we’, ‘us’ and ‘our’, we mean Life Healthcare Group (Pty) Limited and its subsidiary companies.
When we refer to Personal Information in this notice, we mean information relating to an identifiable, living, natural person, as defined in the Protection of Personal Information Act, 2013 ("POPIA"). We may hold and use Personal Information about you as a customer, supplier, employee, student, a patient or in any other capacity, in accordance with the relevant privacy and national health laws. Depending on what services you receive from us this may include Special Personal Information, as defined in POPIA, such as information relating to your health. The disclosure of your personal information to Life Healthcare is mandatory and required in terms of the services provided to you or agreements with you unless otherwise indicated as voluntary at the point of collection for example where consent is requested.
When do we collect Personal Information about you?
We may collect information about you when you:
Please note in the interests of training and continually improving our services, calls to Life Healthcare or any of its subsidiaries may be monitored or recorded.
To process your information in accordance with POPIA, we must establish a lawful basis for doing so which must be at least one of the following:
In addition, your Special Personal Information, such as information relating to your health may be processed if such processing is necessary for your proper treatment and care, for the administration of our professional practice or where such processing is necessary for the work conducted by insurance companies, medical schemes, medical scheme administrators and managed healthcare organisations.
The National Health Act, 2003 also permits us to disclose your Personal Information in the following circumstances:
We process your Personal Information for a number of legitimate interests as set out within this privacy notice having assessed and taken into account your interests, rights, and freedoms.
Your Personal Information will be kept confidential and secure and will, unless you agree otherwise, only be used for the purpose(s) for which it was collected and in accordance with this our applicable Privacy notice, POPIA and national health laws.
We have appropriate organisational and technical security measures in place to prevent unauthorized access or unlawful processing of Personal Information and to prevent Personal Information being lost, destroyed, or damaged. We monitor our information systems in an endeavor to ensure that the ongoing security is robust. All Personal Information you provide to us is stored securely. Where we have given you (or where you have chosen) a password that enables you to access certain parts of our website and information systems, you are responsible for keeping that password confidential. We ask you not to share a password with anyone. The transmission of information via the internet cannot be guaranteed as completely secure. Once we have received your information, we will use strict procedures and security features in an endeavor to prevent unauthorised access.
At your own, or your doctor’s request, we may transfer personal information including health information to you or your doctor via email or instant messaging, specifically including, but not limited to WhatsApp, or you may choose to transfer information to us via email or instant messaging.
While this may be done for the purposes of providing you with appropriate treatment and care, these are not the most secure methods of information transmission; if you or your doctor choose to send or receive such information via these methods, you acknowledge and understand that the use, processing and sharing of your personal information in this manner will be done at your own risk.
Some of the risks which should be noted regarding the sharing of personal information through instant messaging platforms:
All information regarding your IP address will automatically be collected and stored as part of your access via the website to Life’s’ server. This website usage information serves as an indicator of how visitors of the website make use of the website, the amount of times which the website is accessed, the frequency of all users in general to each web page, registered IP addresses together with the time period of each visit and/or access of the website and web pages.
Should there be a security breach, the IP address will be used to identify the user by the internet service provider and contact will be made thereafter. Life endeavors to ensure that your IP address is not processed in a manner that infringes on your privacy.
Personal Information that we collect from you may be transferred to, and stored at, a destination outside of South Africa. It may also be processed by staff operating outside South Africa who work for us or for one of our suppliers. Where we transfer your Personal Information outside South Africa, we will endeavor to ensure that there are adequate protections in place for your rights, in accordance with POPIA. By submitting your Personal Information, and in providing any Personal Information to us, you agree to this transfer, storing or processing. We will take all steps reasonably necessary to ensure that your information is treated securely and in accordance with this Privacy Notice.
We may disclose your Personal Information (to the extent necessary) to certain third party organisations used to support the delivery of our services during our usual course of business. These may include the following:
The hospital, clinic, facility, its staff and healthcare providers, including but not limited, to doctors, pathologists, radiologists and therapists (and other allied healthcare professionals or auxiliary medical professionals), may collect, process and disclose your confidential information, including information relating to diagnosis and treatment (referred to herein as “personal and health information” or “information”), as is necessary in the following circumstances:
In instances where Life Healthcare does share your personal and health information with third parties, Life Healthcare undertakes to share only those aspects of your information which is necessary, or which is necessary to prevent a threat to public health, while preserving the confidentiality, privacy, and security of that information as far as possible. In addition, Life Healthcare may be required to disclose your personal and health information in terms of a court order or other law. Upon your request, we will notify you of the recipients or category of recipients with whom we share your Personal Information, as well as the category of information shared (for example, your demographic or health information);
o In addition to the above instances, you grant Life Healthcare the right to process your personal and health information, for the following purposes:
As a patient or guarantor, you may supply Life Healthcare with your next of kin’s personal information – this will only be processed where required to protect your legitimate interests or our legitimate business interests. It is your responsibility to ensure that your next of kin would not object to the provision and or processing of their Personal Information.
We may also disclose your Personal Information to third parties in the event that we sell or buy any business or assets or where we are required by law to do.
Many of our premises are surveyed by CCTV for the purposes of security and the safe provision of care. Images and videos may be retained for a limited period.
We may also retain your personal and health information for statistical, historical or research purposes. In such instances, we shall maintain the confidentiality of your information through adequate security measures such as de-identification or anonymisation of the information concerned.
We may process your personal and health information through the CareConnect health information exchange (HIE), but we will only do so once you or your legal guardian have signed a consent form to participate in the HIE. A more detailed consent and privacy notice relating to the Health Information Exchange will be made available to you at the point of consent.
We may process your Personal Information as required for our legitimate business interests and in course of running our business. These include but are not limited to: during our BEE scoring and reporting process; computing sustainability measures; during quality audits; during internal and external investigations; if you submit tender and other proposals to us, and for vendor assessments that may be carried out as required. We may also process your information during a business due diligence; and we may process your information for commercial and market research purposes.
You have the following rights in relation to your Personal Information, where legally permissible:
Please note: Your rights are not absolute: they do not always apply in all cases, and we will let you know in our correspondence with you how and whether we will be able to comply with your request.
Should you, at any time, wish to object, or feel that we are not reasonably processing your personal and health information in a manner that preserves the confidentiality, privacy and security thereof as required by law, you may notify us accordingly, either telephonically or in writing, and we will then ensure that your complaint or query is investigated and dealt with efficiently.
Further to the above, you may contact us in order to determine whether we hold any of your Personal Information and thereafter, to request that we rectify or delete such information (to the extent that we are not prohibited from doing so by any law), should it be found to be inaccurate or outdated. In this regard, you may access our PAIA Manual on our website, which outlines the manner and procedure in which you may request information from us.
Should you wish to exercise any of the above rights you may contact the Group Information Officer at myprivacy@lifehealthcare.co.za
Should you not be satisfied with the outcome, you also have the right to lodge a complaint regarding the processing of your Personal Information with the Information Regulator. In terms of POPIA, you are also entitled to direct a compliant to the Office of the Information Regulator, South Africa at JD House, 27 Stiemens Street, Braamfontein, Johannesburg, 2001. P.O Box 31533, Braamfontein, Johannesburg, 2017. Email general – enquiries@inforegulator.org.za; Complaints – POPIAComplaints@inforegulator.org.za
Changes to our Privacy Notice
We keep our Privacy Policy under regular review and as a result it may be amended from time to time without notice. As a result, we encourage you to review this Privacy Policy regularly.
This privacy notice was last updated on 24 February 2022. All rights reserved.
Life Healthcare, Oxford Parks, Building 2, 203 Oxford Road
(Corner Eastwood & Oxford Roads), Dunkeld, 2196