Unemployed
SA medical interns look to the UN and WHO for
relief
JUNE 28TH,
2017 TRAINING
'
-------------- He said in the report that a second list of foreign
unemployed doctors had been circulated, but the department was not compelled to
employ them as most of the ministers in their
countries had informed him that
they needed to return to their countries where they were needed in the work
force ------.’’
Unemployed SA intern
doctors, who have been left in limbo for six months, have taken their concerns
to the UN and the World Health Organisation.
A Sunday
Tribune reports that one of the doctors has addressed a letter to the
secretary-general of the UN and the director-general of the WHO, asking for
their urgent intervention on behalf of more than 90 Durban intern doctors.
The report
says in 2016, the WHO launched the Global Strategy for Human Rescources: Workforce
2030 to train 40m doctors and health-care workers worldwide of which 18m
need to be in sub-Saharan Africa. The unemployed intern doctors want to
know how the government expects to achieve this goal when they cannot provide
jobs for them.
The report
says Doctor Su-Jana Basson who addressed the letter on behalf of the doctors,
said in her letter: “I am afraid that South Africa cannot afford to pay its own
doctors yet we are taking in more medical students at universities. But once we
qualify, we cannot work as the government is not employing us. It has been six
and a half months since we have been unemployed and our Department of
Health keeps promising that they will place us, but we believe the
minister is lying and is not being honest with us. We believe that there are no
funds to pay us.”
Basson said
it was not only qualified doctors without work, but also nurses,
physiotherapists, speech therapists, occupational therapist and other allied
health-care professionals. The report says it has seen a list of more than 200
unemployed health-care workers nationally.
“Yet our
hospitals are so short staffed and health professionals who are currently
employed are overworked and working under extremely stressful conditions. We
would like to know why there is a crisis as we were trained to be doctors and
now we cannot use our skills to work in our communities,” Basson wrote.
Dr Rufaro
Chatora, the WHO representative for South Africa, has received Basson’s letter.
He is quoted in the report as saying that globally, issues related to the use
of the health workforce remained a priority that needed to be addressed to meet
the health sustainable development goal targets.
He said the
2030 workforce commission proposes ambitious solutions to ensure that the world
has the right number of health workers with the right skills and in the right
places.
However,
Health Minister Dr Aaron Motsoaledi said in the report that there is not a
single doctor who can claim to be unemployed, as all interns were placed. He
said some doctors had rejected working in certain areas and then claimed to be
unemployed. “If they tell me they are unemployed, 141 doctors are needed
in Limpopo and I can send them there tomorrow, but they do not want
to go and work in those areas. Most of them give reasons such as marriage and
religion,” said Motsoaledi.
He said the
department had verified the lists circulating. Most doctors on the lists were
employed while some had rejected offers made to them for special reasons. He
said in the report that a second list of foreign unemployed doctors had been
circulated, but the department was not compelled to employ them as most of the
ministers in their countries had informed him that they needed to return to
their countries where they were needed in the work force.’’
Africa Center for Clin Gov Research &
Patient Safety
@ HRI West Africa
Group - HRI WA
Consultants in
Clinical Governance Implementation
Publisher: Health and
Medical Journals
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Estate, Calabar
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Cross River State, Nigeria
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