Priority will be given to local doctors instead of Cuban doctors, says Health Dept
Department of Health Spokesperson, Neil Shikwambana, reacted to an outcry from the South African Communist Party (SACP) Provincial Executive Council (PEC) after its meeting on 16 August.
POLOKWANE – Following concerns about qualified general practitioners and doctors from South Africa struggling to find jobs, the Department of Health has made the decision to give priority to South African doctors instead of Cuban doctors.
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Department of Health Spokesperson, Neil Shikwambana, reacted to an outcry from the South African Communist Party (SACP) Provincial Executive Council (PEC) after its meeting on 16 August. The SACP PEC expressed its shock and worry about the department’s decision to terminate the Cuban medical collaborations by the end of November 2019.”In simple terms, it means that by 1 December 2019, no Cuban doctors will serve our people at any health institutions in the province,” a statement by the party reads.
The SACP PEC will be meeting with Alliance partners (ANC, Cosatu and Sanco) to expose the real cost of this decision.
Shikwambana, however, denied the allegations the department was terminating the services of all Cuban doctors.
The Cuban doctors are assisting in South African hospitals as the result of a Cuban/South African agreement closed in 1996 when the country had a huge shortage of doctors, according to Shikwambana. In the meantime, many medical students were trained in Cuba as doctors as an intervention to alleviate the shortage. The contract was that Cuban doctors would stay in South Africa for three or five years, according to their contracts, and would then return to Cuba. It was agreed some of these doctors’ contracts would be renewed, and in 2012 the contract between the two countries was amended so doctors would return to Cuba at the end of their contracts, and they would be replaced with other doctors.
Shikwambana added the department’s assessment is that currently South Africa has produced enough general practitioners and trained its own doctors, some of whom struggle to find jobs, and that some Cuban doctors need not be replaced when their contracts expired.”If we, for instance, need 30 doctors and have 20 South African doctors available, then we will only require 10 Cuban doctors to augment the shortage,” Shikwambana explained. “We will still have a need for specialists such as in the field of cardiology, for instance, for a long time and we welcome Cuban specialists to work in the province. We will, however, prioritise South African citizens for the filling of vacancies.”
