PRESCRIPTION & MEDICAL LICENCE VERIFICATION POLICY

1. Why We Verify

Not every medical device may be sold to anyone who asks. The Medicines and Related Substances Act 101 of 1965 and the Medical Devices Regulations restrict certain devices to supply against a prescription, or to buyers who hold an appropriate professional or facility licence. As the holder of SAHPRA Medical Device Establishment Licence No. 00005410MD, G 1 Healthcare (Pty) Ltd must satisfy itself that a buyer is entitled to receive a restricted device before releasing it.

Verification protects patients from receiving a device that is wrong for them, and protects our licence. It is not a marketing exercise and the information you give us is not used for one.

2. What Is Restricted, and What Is Not

Most of what we sell — standard ostomy pouches, barriers, adhesive removers and accessories — is available without any documentation. Each product page displays the product's regulatory classification, and where a document is required, the checkout will tell you before you pay.

If you are unsure whether a product you need is restricted, ask us before ordering rather than after.

3. What We Accept

3.1 A prescription must be issued by a practitioner registered with the Health Professions Council of South Africa or the South African Nursing Council, must be legible, and must show the practitioner's name and registration number, the patient's name, the product or device prescribed, the date of issue, and the practitioner's signature. We accept a clear photograph or scan; we do not require the original.

3.2 A professional or facility licence must be current, must show the licence number, the issuing authority and the expiry date, and must be in the name of the person or organisation buying. Acceptable examples include a SAHPRA establishment licence, a pharmacy licence, a facility licence issued by a provincial Department of Health, or an HPCSA or SANC registration certificate.

3.3 Formats. PDF, PNG, JPEG or WebP. Upload the document from your account, under Licences. Please do not send documents over WhatsApp or embed them in a public review.

4. What We Will Not Accept

• a document that has expired, or that expires before the order is dispatched;
• a prescription issued to somebody else, unless you are the parent, legal guardian or authorised carer of that person;
• a licence belonging to an employer, colleague or another facility that you are not authorised to act for;
• a document that has been altered, obscured, cropped so that key detail is lost, or is illegible; or
• a screenshot of a document displayed on another person's account.

Submitting a forged or altered document is a criminal offence. We will refuse the order, close the account, and report the matter to the relevant professional council, SAHPRA and the South African Police Service where warranted.

5. How Verification Works

• Submission. You upload the document and enter the licence type, licence number, issuing authority and expiry date. The record is created with the status Pending review.
• Review by a person. A member of our compliance team reviews it. No decision is made automatically by software — this matters, because section 71 of POPIA gives you the right not to be subject to a decision based solely on automated processing.
• Independent checking. We may verify a licence or registration number against the register of the issuing authority, and may contact the issuing practitioner or facility to confirm authenticity. We do not disclose to them what you ordered beyond what is necessary to confirm the document.
• Outcome. We aim to decide within 2 business days. You will see the status change to Approved or Rejected in your account, with a reason if it is rejected, and you may correct and resubmit.
• Expiry. An approved licence lapses to Expired on its expiry date and must be replaced before further restricted purchases.
• Orders in the meantime. An order for a restricted product is placed on compliance hold until verification succeeds. It is not dispatched while on hold. If verification fails, the order is cancelled and refunded in full.

6. Buying for Somebody Else

You may buy on behalf of a patient in your care — a family member, someone you care for, or a resident of a facility you work at — provided the prescription is in the patient's name and you are entitled to act for them. Give the patient's name at checkout so the order matches the prescription.

Where you supply a third party's personal or health information to us, you confirm that you are entitled to do so and that the patient, or their guardian, has been informed. We rely on that confirmation.

7. How We Protect the Document

• Access. Verification documents are stored as private files that cannot be retrieved from our content network at all without a signed, time-limited link. Such a link is issued only to you, or to a member of our compliance team reviewing your submission, expires after five minutes, and every issue is logged. Staff in other administrative roles — catalogue and logistics — cannot obtain one.
• Explicit consent, recorded. We record the date, time and version of this policy at the moment you consent to us handling the document, and you can withdraw that consent from your account at any time.
• Confidentiality. Everyone with access is bound by a written duty of confidentiality, as contemplated in section 32(2) of POPIA.
• Not sent to the warehouse. Your document is never passed to our fulfilment partner, the warehouse, or a courier. They receive only the SKU, quantity and delivery address needed to send the parcel.
• Not used for anything else. We do not use it for marketing, profiling, credit assessment or analytics, and we do not sell or share it commercially.
• Storage. Documents are held with our document storage operator under a written data processing agreement requiring POPIA-grade protection. See clauses 7 and 8 of our Privacy Policy.
• Retention. We keep the document until the licence expires plus a further 12 months, then delete it. A prescription is kept for as long as needed to demonstrate that the supply was lawful, then deleted. Only the fact and date of a verification decision is kept beyond that.
• Deletion on request. Ask the Information Officer and we will delete the document, subject to any record we must keep to show that a past supply was lawful. Deleting it means we can no longer release restricted products to you.

8. Your Rights

You may withdraw your consent to our processing of your health information at any time, ask to see what we hold, ask us to correct it, or object to processing. Clause 14 of our Privacy Policy explains how, including the prescribed POPIA forms and your right to complain to the Information Regulator.

If we reject a document you believe is valid, reply to the rejection notice and ask for it to be reconsidered by a different reviewer. We will look again and give you reasons.

9. This Is Not Clinical Advice

Verifying a prescription confirms that we may lawfully supply the device. It is not confirmation that the device is clinically right for you, and we do not second-guess your practitioner's choice. Questions about suitability, sizing or technique belong with your stoma care nurse, surgeon or doctor. See our Website & Medical Device Disclaimer.

10. Contact

G 1 Healthcare (Pty) Ltd — Registration No. 2025/451756/07

SAHPRA Medical Device Establishment Licence No. 00005410MD

3 Inglenook Road, Riverside Lifestyle Estate, House 14, Nahoon Valley Park, Eastern Cape, 5202, South Africa

Verification queries: support@g1healthcare.co.za · WhatsApp: +27 84 498 6840