Student doctors can’t find internships

Lack of funds affects graduates

Many medical graduates are frustrated about the delay in their placement in public hospitals for internships next year due to a lack of funds.

Provinces have a constitutional imperative to disburse their budgets to internship programmes that cater for medical graduates. This is in order for them to gain experience and register with the Health Professions Council of South Africa to qualify as practitioners.

The Department of Health has yet to finalise the placement of hundreds of graduates for a programme that starts in January.

Michael Cloete‚ a final-year medical student at the University of the Witwatersrand‚ said he was left feeling defeated and exhausted because of the lack of communication from the department about placements for next year.

“Do I want to be a doctor in South Africa anymore? I’m tired – emotionally‚ physically and mentally tired. The worst part is I haven’t even started working yet,” Cloete wrote on Facebook.

The South African Medical Association (Sama) says the number of student doctors eligible for internship next year now exceeds the available pool of funded posts in the country.

“We are in need of more than 280 more posts that require funding to absorb all eligible candidates,” said Sama chair Dr Mzukisi Grootboom.

Minister of Health Dr Aaron Motsoaledi said provinces had no choice but to allocate funds and place medical graduates at hospitals. –