Hospitals on road back to full health
78 doctors, radiographers appointed by MEC
HEALTH MEC Sicelo Gqobana is proving to be a man of his word. Exactly three months after promising to fasttrack the appointment of more doctors for the Port Elizabeth Hospital Complex, he has already appointed 78 professionals for the city’s Livingstone, Dora Nginza and Provincial hospitals.
Of these, 70 are doctors and eight are radiographers.
In the Eastern Cape as a whole, 353 doctors and clinical staff have been appointed in the threemonth period.
Besides the doctors and radiographers appointed for the PE Hospital Complex, the department has also appointed three medical technologists, six occupational therapists, nine pharmacists, 11 physiotherapists, 10 nurses and two audiologists since January, officials say.
Fifty-one other appointments, mostly doctors and nurses for the complex, are still pending due to incomplete information from candidates or complex administration.
But Gqobana is still not happy – as public hospitals in the province are “bleeding doctors” faster than they can be appointed.
“Despite these appointments, the Eastern Cape still has a dire lack of doctors and cannot attract enough to fill the available posts,” he said.
“I have asked officials to go on an unprecedented recruitment drive – especially at district level – to see where we can find more doctors.”
His spokesman, Sizwe Kupelo, said the appointments were good news, but there was still a lot of work to be done.
“We are very aware that there are serious challenges in the human resources department.
“We know this is driving doctors away,” Kupelo said.
More posts, to a total value of R100-million, will be advertised in the next two months.
Kupelo said the department had also shortlisted candidates for crucial medical specialist jobs, including head of the burns unit at Dora Nginza Hospital and other specialist units at the complex. These included heads of the cardiology unit and cardiothoracic unit.
Like the burns unit, the cardiothoracic unit is the only one in the province and has been without a permanent head since 2010.
Gqobana heard in January how highly qualified surgeons and other medical specialists had declined positions at the hospital complex after long delays and red tape resulted in them waiting months for letters of appointment.
He apologised at meetings in the city for the appalling way in which medical specialists and doctors at the complex had been treated.
At the time, doctors were leaving the state hospitals due to delays with their contracts being finalised and the long hours they were forced to work as a result of the staff shortages. Private doctors helping out at clinics and hospitals were also not being paid on time.
Kupelo said Gqobana was still focused on sorting out the department’s human resource issues.
“We have several human resource weaknesses that are driving doctors away,” he said.
Gqobana also appointed a task team headed by human resources deputy director Karen Campbell and ordered that the contracts of long-serving cardiologist Basil Brown and neurosurgeon Ian Copley be renewed.
Both had agreed to return on condition that the staff shortages in their departments were immediately addressed to relieve some of the pressure.
Campbell then presented Gqobana with a plan showing that R38-million was immediately available for the filling of posts at the hospital complex and R100million for other posts.
The first priority was to fill the 47 posts at the complex left vacant by doctors last year.
Kupelo said the recruitment drive started by the MEC in January and headed by provincial hospital services head Litha Matiwane would now be extended to district level.
Its aims was to obtain the services of as many medical practitioners as possible.