‘Unrest could hurt health system severely’

WITH the ongoing student protests over fee increases threatening the academic year, the ripple effects may also affect another ailing, yet critical sector – the public health system.

The Health Professions Council of SA ( HPCSA) has voiced its concerns that thousands of final-year medical students will be unable to join the chronically short-staffed sector next year, if unable to complete their studies this year.

The council said it was concerned about the unrest “impacting severely” on the training of future health professionals.

“Currently, South Africa has limited resources in terms of health professionals practising in the country.

“The continuation of such an unstable academic environment will affect the registration of final-year students due to complete their studies and have to register with the council for the purpose of practising their professions in the Republic of South Africa at the end of the year,” the council said yesterday.

The HPCSA said while it couldn’t estimate the number of students that would be registering with it next year, the total number of students that had registered this year was 236 401. This was inclusive of professionals and interns.

Wits’ dean of health sciences, Professor Martin Veller, said the faculty was “still currently fully committed” to ensuring all our health sciences graduates will graduate to take up posts in January 2017.

“To achieve this, however, we need to reinstate the academic programme; even another week will see the window to do this disappear. This would have far-reaching consequences,” Veller added.

In 2015, Wits graduated 256 medical doctors. However, it also graduated a numbers of clinicians, nurses, occupational therapists and a diverse range of health professionals – many of these professionals take up posts in the public health-care system.

“In 2016, we expect 289 students to write their final exams so as to graduate in January 2017,” Veller said.