Province to get additional 30 medical interns
THE Eastern Cape Department of Health has agreed to fund an additional 30 posts for medical interns in the province’s hospitals to help address the national shortage of funded community service posts.
“All the provinces combined made about 1 400 posts available, while there were 1 700 medical students graduating,” provincial health spokesman Sizwe Kupelo said.
“We were asked by the national department to pledge more posts to make up for the gap.
“This province was asked to fund an additional 30 posts and the superintendent-general, Dr Thobile Mbengashe, agreed.
“We initially had 119 placed medical interns for next year. Now there will be 149.”
South African Medical Association (Sama) chairman Dr Mzukisi Grootboom said last week that the association had expressed concern about the lack of funded posts for next year.
“The problem does not lie with the overall number of Health Professionals Council of South Africa accredited intern posts,” he said.
“Rather it lies with the lack of funded posts for all potential 2018 interns from the pool of final year medical students.
“This year an exhaustive process led by the Junior Doctors’ Association of South Africa in conjunction with the national Department of Health, has been under way to ensure a fair and transparent process to place students in intern posts for next year’s intake.”
Grootboom said the number of student doctors eligible for internship next year exceeded the available pool of funded posts in the country.
Their call for more funded internship posts had to be seen in the context that it was a statutory obligation for a prospective doctor to fulfil to gain full registration as an independent practitioner.
“The government, both national and provincial, has an obligation to ensure that this statutory requirement is met,” Grootboom said.
Kupelo said that doctors who trained in Cuba would be required to finish their studies at a South African university from next year to familiarise themselves with South African medicine.