Jobless doctors to be hired soon, says minister
Provincial health departments will have hired “most, if not all” of SA’s unemployed junior doctors by the end of March, thanks to the extra R3.7bn allocated to the sector’s wage bill in the February budget, health minister Joe Phaahla said in parliament on Wednesday.
About 800 of the 2,200 doctors who completed their community service in December could not find jobs in the public sector due to a hiring freeze imposed by provinces in response to their shrinking budgets. Doctors have been vocal about their frustration, and have organised demonstrations across SA to draw attention to the challenges they face.
“Provinces have advertised just over 1,100 positions. How many takers there will be, we don’t know,” Phaahla said in response to questions from MPs in the National Assembly.
His department was working closely with SA’s biggest doctor group, the SA Medical Association, the SA Medical Association Trade Union and provincial health departments to help unemployed doctors find jobs at public hospitals and clinics, he said. By Monday, 270 appointment letters had been sent to doctors.
“Provinces are working on unfreezing posts and making sure that in doing so the young people who have qualified in medicine, pharmacy, nursing and other professions can increasingly be employed. We are monitoring this on a weekly basis,” he said.
PROVINCES HAVE ADVERTISED JUST OVER 1,100 POSITIONS. HOW MANY TAKERS THERE WILL BE, WE DON’T KNOW
Medical graduates complete two years of internship, followed by a year of community service before they can register with the Health Professions Council of SA to practise independently. Until this year, doctors who wished to work in the public sector had relatively little trouble finding jobs, but the deep budget cuts imposed by the Treasury in the medium-term budget policy statement last year meant provincial health departments could not absorb as many healthcare professionals as usual in their workforce.
Part of the reason for the budget crunch — which affected healthcare professionals across the board — was the higher than expected wage agreement reached between the government and unions in April.
In February, the Treasury allocated an extra R11.6bn over the medium-term expenditure framework to help cover the health sector’s compensation bill, of which R3.7bn has been allocated to the 2024/25 fiscal year.
Provincial health departments will, however, remain under financial pressure as the consolidated health budget shrinks in real terms over the medium term.
The budget is set to increase by a nominal 3.4%, while the Treasury expects inflation to come in at 4.7% over the next three years.
Asked about the potential role of the private sector, Phaahla said the government would not scrap the regulations that prohibit private hospitals from hiring doctors as this would create a drain on the state. Private hospitals are permitted to hire nurses, but doctors with rooms in the premises of private hospitals are required to establish their own independent practices.