The South African Medical Association Trade Union (Samatu) says that at least 225 post-community service doctors face unemployment come January.
Samatu has criticized the national health department, accusing it of failing to absorb medical professionals despite understaffing at the country’s health facilities.
The union’s secretary-general, Cedric Sihlangu, said that many of their members had been told that provincial health departments had no money to hire them post their community service training.
He said that this did not bode well for an already understaffed health system.
“It’s common cause that we don’t have enough doctors in this country. The population is underserviced.”
Sihlangu said that the department needed to review what he called “top-heavy structures across provinces at administrative level” and increase the number of health professionals on the ground.
Some of the doctors facing the prospect of unemployment next month say they feel neglected by the national health department.
“We have families that depend on us. We have bills to pay. We have ambitions of specializing, serving the community and all of those things,” said Dr Ntuthuko Mkhabela.
Doctor Lusanda Zwane said that the situation was affecting her mental health.
“I feel anxious. It’s very easy for the department to issue a statement saying some posts will be filled by the 1st of April. But this does not address the concerns of someone with bills to pay for January, February and March,” she said.
Some described the inability of the national health department to absorb them as a crime against patients.
“We’re having people having to wait three hours in a line to be seen by a doctor… and healthcare being a basic human right, I think it’s a direct violation of human rights,” said Mkhabela.
Meanwhile, Samatu said that healthcare workers were overwhelmed by the volume of patients, and getting rid of more doctors would just exacerbate the problem.
“You have a few doctors who are currently in the public sector who are severely overworked and they end up being burned out, being exhausted. We are seeing a lot of mental health issues coming up among our population of doctors because of the work environment,” said Sihlangu.
National health department human resources manager, Victor Khanyile, has urged unemployed doctors to reach out to them. He promised that the department would assist them in the best way possible.
-EWN
In other news – The reason why TT Mbha and Somizi are no longer best friends
Mzansi media personality and businessman, Somizi Mhlongo and TT Mbha were once joined on the hip but it seems that their friendship which was once everyone’s envy has gone sour and TT Mbha says that he does not know what changed.
According to a local publication, the Mzansi Cribs host took to his Instagram in a since-deleted post and said, “My wife just sent me this pic from two years ago today and I honestly didn’t know how to respond to her because so much has changed in the past two years. Learn More
