THESE KZN unemployed doctors demand action.
They want the Department of Health to deal with the shortage of doctors in the province.
From Tuesday night, 2 April the gatvol doctors braved the cold weather and camped outside the Natalia Building, which is the department's head office in Pietermaritzburg, KZN.
They vowed not to leave the premises without appointment letters, as about 70 doctors claimed that they completed their in-service training with the department in December 2023 and ready to serve the nation.
One of the doctors, Thanduxolo Cele, said they're tired of being ignored by the department while the health facilities are understaffed.
"We decided to sacrifice our warm homes for the freezing cold because we want the department to see that we mean business. We are not going to move here until each and every one of us gets an appointment letter," he said.
Thanduxolo said the only thing they want is transparency from the department as to what happened with the budget to fill the doctors' posts.
He said that in February 2024, they handed over a memorandum to the department and gave them two weeks to respond to their grievances.
"But until this day they have not. We even requested a meeting with the HOD, but we were told that he's not available as he is out campaigning. What is that really?" he said.
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Thanduxolo said the issue here is that the health minister assured them that on 1 April, unemployed doctors would be hired, and even President Cyril Ramaphosa echoed the minister during the ANC manifesto launch at Moses Mabhida Stadium.
Responding to some of the grievances, KZN Health MEC Nomagugu Simelane has reassured the group that their plight was being attended to at the highest level of government, which will do its best to employ as many of them as possible.
"Regrettably, they were unable to have a meeting with the head of department Dr Sandile Tshabalala, as per their demands, as he had been unaware of the action, and was occupied with other government commitments at the time," she said.
Simelane said they believe that is not how they should be negotiating.
"We should be able to stick to agreements that have been made. We do have vacancies that have not been filled. Those vacancies are in almost all our hospitals, which have the prerogative to recruit. Unfortunately, we are unable to fill all of those posts at the level that we would like to. That means we are able to fill only those posts that are funded," said Simelane.
She said although they have received funds from the MTEF (Medium Term Expenditure Framework) but those are not for hiring unemployed doctors.
"Those funds were meant to foot the bill for the wage agreement that was agreed upon last year," she said.
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