Services of 49 doctors lost in NHI red tape

FORTY-NINE unemployed doctors are said to be feeling let down by the provincial department of health, saying they have not worked for two months in the national health insurance (NHI) pilot programme.

The pilot programme, to be run in the health department’s O R Tambo municipality, was announced with fanfare in 2016 in Mthatha.

Some of the doctors, who spoke to the Dispatch on condition of anonymity, said their contracts were ended abruptly at the end of March. They said 49 doctors were affected, and most were at home unemployed in Mthatha, Mbashe, Qunu and Mqhekezweni.

The doctors said they had been paid by an outsourced human resources company in the past but the department’s contract ended with the company, leaving the doctors in the lurch.

“We were made to understand that we would be able to work because the department would handle the payments. Then out of the blue the department told us last week that they would not be able to pay us because they cannot deal with the paperwork,” he said.

More than 50 clinics and healthcare centres in the O R Tambo region do not have doctors.

Provincial health spokesman Sizwe Kupelo said: “The function [of paying the doctors] has been given to the province, and our system is to absorb them either on a permanent basis or for sessions.

“To achieve this, recruitment processes have to be followed. Unfortunately those already doing sessions with us cannot be considered because they are already in the system.”

Kupelo said the unemployed doctors would be interviewed and appointed permanently, and the private doctors will be offered sessions. “The department is now awaiting submission of their CVs, qualifications and appropriate registrations,” Kupelo said. —