Mboweni’s bitter pill for graduate doctors

As Finance Minister Tito Mboweni happily dishes out hundreds of millions of rands to keep poorly managed and corrupt state-owned enterprises in the green – the latest being R10 billion for SA Airways (SAA) – government has been accused of scuppering its intervention to improve access to health care.

There have been reports of more than 150 graduate doctors in limbo due to the health department’s alleged lack of funding for community service placement.

Kalvin Maharaj, a student doctor representing KwaZulu-Natal, confirmed yesterday there were about 55 doctors waiting for placement in his group.

“Our lawyers have scheduled a meeting with the HPCSA [Health Professions Council of SA] over this matter. We will have to wait for the outcome of that meeting, which would then determine what would happen next,” he said.

Department of health spokesperson Popo Maja could not be reached for comment and had not responded to questions by the time of going to press.

For several years, the health department has seemingly battled with placing graduate doctors in public facilities for their mandatory community service to complete their training.

Public health experts have lamented government’s drive to increase the intake of medical students, including the SA-Cuba doctor training programme, to address increased access to healthcare.

“By not placing these healthcare workers due to lack of funds, we are depriving South Africans of health care. We are also not recouping our investment in training,” said Dr Atiya Mosam, a public health medicine specialist.

She said this came at a great loss to the graduate doctors because until they have completed their community service and registered as independent practitioners, they cannot work anywhere else in the country.

Mosam said such maladministration also resulted in SA losing these doctors to other countries which, she said, was a loss of investment as government subsidises medical students.

She added the graduate doctors could also have been deployed as front-line health workers for Covid-19 intervention to replace Cuban doctors with an alleged R440 million price tag.

Public health specialist Dr Shakira Choonara said lack of doctor placement has been a recurring issue. She said these much-needed graduates were at the mercy of high levels of bureaucracy.

“Time and again, they have to organise protests and raise the issue wherever possible. Year after year it is the same issue. The government’s human resources for health strategy 2030 also highlights how weak human resources systems are in terms of including tracking personnel in the system,” she said.

Choonara said government should review the mandatory community service or ensure graduates were placed as this current situation was unacceptable.

According to trade union Solidarity, government should consider approaching the private sector as it was unable to cope financially and administratively to place students.

Paul Maritz, the union’s manager of youth and career development, said the current situation left the “state no choice but to approach the private sector to assist with the placements and the funding of internships for junior medical practitioners”.

He said problems were not just limited to the placements but that the entire system was flawed. Junior doctors were placed late, in unfamiliar areas, when applications for accommodation and other arrangements were closed.

“The private sector, however, is ready to take in and train these interns. The private sector just needs the approval to do so,” Maritz added.

– siphom@citizen.co.za

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