Who we are
For the purposes of the Protection of Personal Information Act 4 of 2013 ("POPIA"), the responsible parties are the two practices that see patients under the name Vein Centres South Africa: Dr Johan Blignaut Inc (Fourways centre) and Dr SJ Blignaut Inc (Umhlanga and Somerset West centres).
Information Officer: Dr J Blignaut
Email: fourways@veinsurgery.co.za
Telephone: Durban 031 566-3960 | Johannesburg 011 511-0020 | Somerset West 021 205-2417
Postal and physical address: Suite 7, Block B, Cedar Tree Medical Centre, Stinkwood Close, Fourways, Johannesburg, 2539
What personal information we collect
Information you give us through this website. When you complete a contact form, appointment request, online vein screening or medical scheme enquiry, we collect your name, email address, telephone number, the centre you wish to attend, and whatever you choose to tell us in your message. The online screening also collects information about your symptoms and vein history.
Online vein screening. The screening runs on our own website server. Your answers, and any photographs of your legs you choose to add, are sent by email to the centre you choose. Photographs are stored in a protected area of our server that cannot be reached from the internet, and the email contains only a time-limited, signed link to view them. Screening photographs are deleted from the server after 30 days; if you become a patient, the ones we need are kept in your clinical record. We ask you not to include your face, underwear or intimate areas. Separate, optional consents cover follow-up comparison photographs and anonymised use in teaching or on our website, and you can withdraw either at any time.
Information collected when you become a patient. Our patient registration process collects further information, including your identity number or passport number, date of birth, sex, address, medical scheme and membership details, medical history, and clinical information generated during your care, including scan results, photographs and treatment records.
Information collected automatically. When you browse the site we and our service providers may collect your IP address, device and browser type, pages viewed and referring page, through cookies and similar technologies. See the cookies section below.
Special personal information. Health information, and information concerning your sex or biometric data, is "special personal information" under POPIA and receives additional protection. We process it for the purpose of providing you with medical care, which POPIA permits for medical professionals bound by a duty of confidentiality, and otherwise with your consent.
Why we process it and on what basis
We process personal information in order to:
- respond to your enquiry or appointment request;
- assess whether treatment is appropriate and provide medical care;
- verify your medical scheme benefits, obtain pre-authorisation, and render and collect accounts;
- keep the clinical records we are professionally and legally required to keep;
- communicate with you about your appointments, treatment and follow up;
- comply with our legal, professional and regulatory obligations;
- understand how the website is used, so that we can improve it.
Depending on the purpose, our lawful basis is your consent, the performance of a contract with you, compliance with a legal obligation, or our legitimate interests in operating the practice. Providing your information is voluntary, but if you choose not to provide the information we ask for, we may be unable to treat you or to submit claims on your behalf.
Who we share it with
We do not sell your personal information. We share it only where necessary, and then only to the extent necessary, with:
- your medical scheme or administrator, and your gap cover insurer where you ask us to, for authorisation and claims;
- other healthcare practitioners involved in your care, including referring doctors, radiologists and pathologists;
- our practice management, billing, IT and communications service providers, who are contractually required to protect it;
- our professional advisers, and debt collection agencies where an account remains unpaid;
- any party we are required or permitted by law to share it with.
Some of our service providers, and some of the website tools described below, may process information outside South Africa. Where that happens we take reasonable steps to ensure an appropriate level of protection, as POPIA requires.
Cookies and website analytics
Cookies are small files placed on your device by a website. This site uses them for the following purposes.
- Necessary. Cookies required for the site to function and for forms to work correctly. These cannot be switched off.
- Analytics. We use Google Analytics to understand which pages are visited and how people move through the site. This tells us what is useful and what is not.
- Advertising. We use the Meta (Facebook) pixel on our homepage and on our location and About pages only. It allows us to measure the effectiveness of our advertising and may allow Meta to show our advertisements to people who have visited those pages. It is not used on pages about conditions, treatments, fees or the online screening.
- Embedded content. Videos and maps on this site load from YouTube and Google Maps only when you click to play or show them. Those providers may set their own cookies when that content loads. Fonts are served from our own server.
You can block or delete cookies through your browser settings, and you can opt out of Google Analytics using the browser add-on Google provides. Blocking cookies may affect how parts of this site work. Note that our analytics and advertising tools are provided by third parties who process the data under their own privacy policies.
How long we keep it and how we protect it
Clinical records are retained for the periods required by South African law and by the Health Professions Council of South Africa, which for adult patients is generally a minimum of six years from the date they became dormant, with longer periods applying to records of minors and certain other categories. Website enquiries that do not result in treatment are kept only for as long as needed to deal with the enquiry and for a reasonable period afterwards.
We take appropriate, reasonable technical and organisational measures to protect personal information against loss, damage and unauthorised access, as section 19 of POPIA requires. No method of transmission over the internet is completely secure, however, and you send information to us over the internet at your own risk. Please do not send detailed clinical information or identity numbers through the website contact forms; contact your nearest centre instead.
If a security compromise affects your personal information, we will notify you and the Information Regulator as POPIA requires.
Your rights
Under POPIA you have the right to:
- be told what personal information we hold about you, and to request a copy of it;
- ask us to correct or delete information that is inaccurate, irrelevant, excessive, out of date, incomplete, misleading or unlawfully obtained;
- object, on reasonable grounds, to our processing of your information;
- withdraw consent where we rely on your consent, without affecting processing already carried out;
- not be subject to a decision based solely on automated processing;
- complain to the Information Regulator.
To exercise any of these rights, contact our Information Officer using the details above. We may need to verify your identity first. Some rights are limited where we are legally obliged to retain clinical records.
You may also request access to information under the Promotion of Access to Information Act 2 of 2000. Our PAIA manual is available on request.
Complaints
If you are unhappy with how we have handled your personal information, please contact our Information Officer first so that we can try to resolve it.
You may also complain to the Information Regulator (South Africa):
Website: inforegulator.org.za
POPIA complaints: POPIAComplaints@inforegulator.org.za
PAIA complaints: PAIAComplaints@inforegulator.org.za
Changes to this notice
We may update this notice from time to time. The date at the top of the page shows when it was last reviewed.