Doctors made jobless

I refer to Tamar Kahn’s article (“Health minister Joe Phaahla bemoans budget cuts hitting hiring of doctors”, February 6).

We hear this story from our government on an annual basis. Unfortunately, the health ministry has all but destroyed its capabilities and its administration.

Under the ANC government, we cannot expect anything better. We know full well that we are under-resourced across the entire medical sector, not only in terms of doctors.

The public needs to know that if the doctors can’t do an internship and one year of community service, they can’t practise as doctors. In other words, these highly qualified and talented individuals are being thrown into the dustbin of unemployment. We all know the audits of the health ministry and its entities have been a nightmare. There is wasteful expenditure, and an enormous amount of fraud. If the fraud could be tackled, even a third of it, this would pay for the employment of all the doctors and more.

Over and above this nightmare, our government still sees fit to put together a budget to bring in Cuban doctors who can’t speak English and whose qualifications are doubtful. This budget for the Cuban doctors must be condemned immediately and moved immediately to the health department to sort out this urgent problem.

Economists have been telling us that National Health Insurance (NHI) will cost an enormous amount and require sophisticated administration. Our government as it now stands the health ministry in particular will destroy the entire health system within one or two months of introducing NHI.

We are slowly but surely destroying a health system in SA that used to boast some of the best qualified doctors in the world. Roll on elections as soon as possible so that we can employ all our health professionals immediately.

Michael Bagraim, MP

DA employment and labour deputy spokesperson