Triumph is best medicine for returning SA doctors
Quirky umhlanga promenade crash jolts joggers
EARLY morning joggers on the umhlanga promenade were taken by surprise yesterday when a car plunged down a walkway near the lighthouse and crashed into a balustrade.
Visitors who had been ambling along the parade stopped to take pictures and looked on in disbelief as they tried to imagine how the accident occurred.
The owner of the vehicle, who was on the scene, but who wished to remain anonymous, told the Sunday Tribune that his niece had been driving the white Ford Figo.
“My niece was in the car with two others. Fortunately, none of them was hurt. I think she thought the walkway was part of the road,” he said.
A policeman at the scene said a similar incident had occurred last week, also along the walkway, when a truck’s brakes failed and the vehicle crashed into the Oyster Box Hotel’s boundary.
Police spokesperson Lieutenant-colonel Thulani Zwane said he was aware of yesterday’s accident. “Police attended to the scene but no case was opened,” he said.
However, quirky comments about the accident appeared on social media: “From lighthouse to fright house”; “Wonder if the driver had some Durban Poison?”; and from Mohamed Riaz Fakie: “I think the driver wanted a better view.” IT WAS a victory for more than 200 local students who studied medicine abroad when the Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA) confirmed this week that they would be allowed to write the coming board exams in South Africa.
In February, the HPCSA had decided to enforce a regulation proposed in 2009.
The regulation compelled returning doctors to do internships in their countries of study to be eligible to write the HPCSA’S board exams so they could practise in South Africa.
The applicants received a letter on February 16 informing them of the enforcement of the regulation.
This was problematic for them as completing internships in their countries of study was not possible, mainly due to the difficulty of getting work permits.
Hundreds of the affected doctors joined forces to take legal action against the HPCSA.
In the interim, one Kwazulunatal doctor, Kapil Sevnaran, lodged an urgent application in the Gauteng High Court earlier this month to appeal the decision.
Sevnaran’s application stated that the HPCSA had conducted itself “unethically and inefficiently” to the detriment and prejudice of young, aspiring South African doctors in a country facing a dire shortage of doctors.
Attorney Annie Tooray, from Pravda Knowles and Associates, which lodged the application, confirmed that the HPCSA had been in contact with her regarding the appeal against the regulation.
Tooray forwarded an e-mail to Independent Media from the HPCSA’S Doreen Musemwa confirming that the affected doctors were now eligible to write the board exams in May or June as well as in October or November, depending on the number of applications received by the regulatory body.
“It is necessary to have the affected group split into two as the exam venue can only accommodate 120 candidates and we received applications from close to 220 applicants.
“Each applicant will be advised on which sitting they have been allocated to,” Musema wrote in the e-mail.