Almost R300 million spent on underused SA-Cuba health practitioners – report

The Auditor-General of South Africa has laid bare the shortcomings of an internship programme with Cuba.

Aspiring health practitioners sent to the Caribbean island as part of an long-standing agreement between the two nations are now stuck in limbo.

Auditor-General (AG) Tsakani Maluleke revealed the costs and limited successes to Portfolio Committee on defence and military veterans earlier this month.

R2.7 million per student

The internship programme in question dates back to 2014 and sees medicine, biomedical engineering and psychology students take on 18 to 24 month learnership programmes.

The AG’s October report focused on 108 students whose programmes cost a R2.7 million each, or a total cost of R291.6 million.

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As well as noting that said courses could have been completed in South Africa for half the price, Maluleke said the biomedical engineering students cannot continue studying at home because their Cuban course is not recognised by the Engineering Council of South Africa.

Of the 21 medical students sent, only six have been accepted in a university in South Africa while the psychology students have only been absorbed into “psychology-related fields”, reported the Sunday Times.

 “As much as Cuba is well respected in terms of medicine, students can’t be sent overseas at such a cost and struggle to learn a new language, but not get to work,” deputy defence minister Bantu Holomisa told the Sunday Times.

Mandela-Castro Medical Scholarship

The Mandela-Castro Medical Scholarship is advertised on CubaHeal and Bursaries South Africa, with the former stating that “approximately 1,000” students are accepted every year.

To qualify, applicants must be South African citizens and must have passed matric in mathematics, life sciences and physical sciences.

There is an age limit of 25 years, and CubeHeal states that the process is entirely managed by the South African government.

“Once students are selected, they are automatically assigned to a medical university in Cuba. There is no need for individual applications to Cuban universities,” the website confirms.

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