‘Funding is a huge problem,’ says Sama on shortage of medical doctors in SA

Covid has had a profound impact on medical care, including a shortage of doctors and nurses, according to the South African Medical Association (Sama).

According to Sama board member Dr Angelique Coetzee, although there certainly is a shortage of medical doctors, there also is a backlog of specialists in the country.

This is following the Hospital Association of SA’s calls for medical skills to be included in the critical skills list.

“Funding is a huge problem in SA, so we know there is certainly a shortage and the government needs to focus on setting money aside to make sure that people are employed,” said Coetzee.

“However if not, then we are going to see people in future getting healthcare in facilities where there is only a limited amount of healthcare workers.”

The hospital association’s CEO, Dr Dumisani Bomela, said the association was perplexed by the omission of medical skills, in particular nurses and doctors.

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He said they made it clear in a presentation on the proposed National Health Insurance to the parliamentary committee for health how far behind SA was in terms of medical skills available and how stalled the production of these skills has become.

“Leaving out skills previously included on the critical skills list sends the message that we have overcome the problem – but that is simply not the case,” he said.

“It cannot be, as the nursing profession has already long struggled to attract new recruits, a situation that is exacerbated by the amendments to the nurse training curriculum and the accreditation of training facilities that has stalled the numbers of new nurses being trained.”

Bomela said when a significant number of nurses in the profession were over 50 years of age and would be retiring soon, it would be more difficult to reconcile the 2030 Human Resources for Health Strategy.

“[This]projects a shortage of 34 000 nurses by 2025 if nothing is done to attract and retain falling numbers of nursing aspirants, with this critical skills list.”

Meanwhile, the #PutSouthAfrica first movement and youth activist Lucky Biyela said the critical skills list did not reflect any entry-level jobs that ordinary South Africans could do on a daily basis, which could help clarify policies on jobs for South Africans.

“We understand the critical skills list outlines those skills in short supply in the country, but we need a list that is not primarily aimed at attracting foreign nationals,” he said.

“I’m just thankful this one includes teachers because they were removed from the list in 2014. Now we can see more unemployed graduates getting jobs they went to school for.”