The South African Medical Association and the Junior Doctors’ Association of South Africa have slammed the Department of Health for failure to release community service placements timeously for 2022. Picture: Myriam Zilles/Unsplash
CAPE TOWN - Despite meetings all year with assurance that junior doctors will get placement for their internship training, more than 2 000 students are still unsure of their immediate future in the medical field, the South African Medical Association (Sama) Employed Doctor's Forum national chairperson Dr Akhtar Hussain has said.
While Hussain said this issue had been ongoing for ten years, the National Department of Health (NDoH) maintained they were working on resolving the problem.
Hussain said: “The situation is very bad, every year for the last 10 years, junior doctors don't know where they are going to go for their internship training. There are about 2 300 doctors still not placed.
“We had a national meeting with the Health Department two days ago, no outcome. They said there is no money, they are trying to get the money I don’t (know) where from. They are not coming back, we are waiting, today (Tuesday) I didn't hear any feedback from them.
“All year we had meetings and they assured us everything we under control. From last month, they said they are just waiting for some funding. Since then there hasn’t been clear answers, just incompetence,” he said.
He said many students were feeling anxious because of the uncertainty as there were many arrangements that had to be made ahead of time once they are placed including accommodation and transport.
The Junior Doctors’ Association of South Africa (Judasa) national chairperson, Dr Tshepile Tlali said as things stood they were in the dark and there did not seem to be a favourable outcome in sight.
In a letter to the department from December 1, Judasa and Sama said: “The purported budgetary constraints as quoted by the NDoH is an insult to hard-working public service doctors who helped, and who continue to help, carry this country through relentless waves of Covid-19, however, not only limited to Covid-19, while funds are misappropriated through numerous endeavours by the government.”
They demanded the department enter into a legally binding contract, stating that all final placements will be released by October 31 each year going forward and that discussions on community service year to be withdrawn as a compulsory training year for doctors, since government is not able to make financial and logistical provision for the programme.
Sama added: “It's completely unacceptable that this late in the year government is claiming that there is not funding for interns and community service doctors. They have had six years to plan for this. These young doctors cannot go and work for themselves (ie open private surgeries or join the private sector) due to the statutory requirements.”
The organisation has threatened legal action to place interns by December 16.
NDoH spokesperson Foster Mohale said: “The National Department of Health and the nine provincial Departments of Health have been closely with National Treasury to place medical graduates in posts for their academic Internship Programme and to place those completing their programmes in Community Service posts.”
The department will communicate with all affected young doctors in due course, followed by a public announcement.
“As a department we treat all the graduates equally, as long as they are South Africans, whether they trained in Cuba or in the country, we treat them equally and we place them equally.
“There’s no superior or super student or super graduate, all the graduates are medical graduates so there’s no discrimination on any students based on where they graduated,” Mohale said.
Cape Times