Healthcare workers aggrieved over a high rate of unemployment in the sector marched to Union Buildings on Monday to hand over a memorandum of demands to the office of the president.
Protesters started gathering at 09:00 on the corner of Madiba and Kgoši Mampuru streets, in Pretoria central. At 09:30 they walked the 3.79km to the Union Buildings.
The South African Medical Association Trade Union (Samatu) presented a memorandum to a representative of The Presidency.
Among the demands, were:
– No national budget cut
– Budget increase to employ full-time healthcare workers on full pay and benefits.
– A database of all healthcare workers completing community service must be captured and plans to accommodate all, by having a placement list which needs to be transparent and must accommodate everyone, including asynchronous. Moreover, all placements must be completed before the end of each year.
– All bursary holders and those healthcare professionals who have contracts should not be released from their contracts but immediately reinstated. All healthcare workers, both bursary and non-bursary must be treated equally and hired immediately. There should be no discrimination against gender and race.
– The creation of additional positions for all healthcare professionals on all levels of healthcare will accommodate the needs of communities.
– Additional funds are to be directed to ensure the immediate hiring of staff.
– Halting shift work in hospitals as Samatu describes it is an impractical solution for most departments that increases waiting times and compromises the personalised continuation of care and training programmes in place for doctors and medical students.
– Mobilisation of resources such as medicine and equipment to rural areas. No healthcare worker must work without the correct medication and materials.
– Equipping of skills through reach-out and reach-in programmes for rural healthcare workers to qualify for diplomas and certificates which allow for healthcare workers to further their education while serving rural communities.
– Annual salary increases and retrospective payments from years preceding.
– Review the hiring process to ensure transparency which must be done with an independent hiring team. HR processes to be sped up to allow reduction of waiting times for patients in hospitals.
“The healthcare system is crippled, we are hanging on the edge. We have healthcare professionals who have taken our oaths and are here to say, ‘not on our watch’,” said Samatu first deputy, Dr Nkateko Mnisi.
“We in the system are burdened with so many patients and burnout happens every day. Yet here are hundreds of unemployed professionals with their CVs in hand who are ready to work. So we urge again and again, employ them now, with full benefits, our communities need it.”
She said that too many vulnerable residents in communities spend far too much time waiting in lines to be attended to.
She urged the department to assist the unemployed healthcare workers who’d much rather serve their communities instead of finding work overseas.
Among the supporting organisations in attendance was Arise South Africa.
National Ground Force member, Prince Michael said the party was in solidarity with Samatu due to the march’s values aligning with the party’s.
“If a person is sent by their parents to go study with money that they don’t have and then they receive the doctorates, certificates and then they don’t get jobs, it doesn’t make sense. We can’t say that there isn’t space because this country is full of sick people and there’s a shortage of healthcare workers in the industry,” Michael said.
Michael aimed at the government saying that not enough is being done to develop the sector’s infrastructure, hence the lack of employment.
“These people did not spend their mother’s and father’s pensions monies to study for years in vain. The money is there to build more hospitals, clinics, pharmacies, etc. We can’t beat around the bush and say there’s no space and the money isn’t there, action must be taken,” Michael continued.
Manager in The Presidency responsible for public liaison, Philemon Mahlangu said the memorandum will be dealt with internally.
Mahlangu acknowledged that this wasn’t the first time that unemployed healthcare workers had marched to the Union Buildings and assured the protesters that officials would try their utmost to respond to the memorandum within the seven-day deadline.
“It is within our strides that your demands are not only met but responded to within the allocated period. Although I cannot give a guarantee regarding the memorandum being responded to by the Department of Health or the minister for health,” he added.
Mahlangu assured the protesters that the president himself would receive the memorandum.
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