Intern doctors to stay

QUIT:

The doctors have said that they were already looking for other jobs and had made decisions to quit the doctor profession as they claimed that government was hell-bent on destroying their careers. IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIllllllllllllllllll

M- The Ministry of Health, it has been alleged, has instructed 54 doctors to wait until July 2023 for the resumption of their internship programme.

Some of the doctors, who preferred to remain anonymous, have said that the ministry, however, refused to convey that message through written notice, fearing that it will be shared in social media platforms.

The doctors said the message was relayed by Dr Okello, who is now Acting Director of Health Services since Dr Vusi Magagula went into retirement recently.

They decried the retirement of Magagula as according to them, he was the one who was overseeing the programme in the past years.

Magagula is on record confirming the situation faced by the interns, where he disclosed that there was a need for the programme to be rebooted to iron out some issues which had led to the collapse of the former one.

“So now, we have to remain at home until all those who took them to court’s contracts expire, which is around July 2023. After then that’s when they will

Minister of Health Lizzie Nkosi (R) together with Principal Secretary, Dr Simon Zwane.

deploy us with peanuts scale of DP 8, E8 000 per month,” the doctor intern complained.

The Principal Secretary (PS) in the Ministry of Health, Dr Simon Zwane, recently called for calm and patience from the doctors as the ministry was in a bid to have the whole internship programme restructured, as government was not prepared to carry on with the programme because everything happened unprecedentedly.

Meanwhile, Some interns have said they cannot wait until 2023 for the resumption of the internship programme as instructed by the

Ministry of Health.

Quit

The doctors have said that they were already looking for other jobs and had made decisions to quit the doctor profession as the Government of Eswatini was hell-bent on destroying their careers.

One intern disclosed to this publication that he was already applying to other professions, hoping to be employed, so that he can forget that he ever wanted to be a health practitioner. Another intern disclosed that most of them were now struggling as some of them came from impoverished backgrounds where they happen to be breadwinners.

The doctors said the continued delay in the resumption of this programme was also affecting their children as some of them are parents and had no means to earn a living.

Well placed sources have disclosed that government would continue remunerating the interns with E8 000 at the resumption of their programme in July 2023.

This is after Eswatini News broke the story a few weeks ago where about 76 doctors, had alleged that their careers were on ice after being idle for almost three years after government through the Ministry of Health