HEALTH Minister Dr Joe Phaahla has assured the public that the government does and will continue to employ doctors.
Over the past month, there have been mounting concerns to have unemployed medical doctors who have completed their medical internships and community service training placed.
These concerns were spread on several social platforms under the hashtag #UnemployedDoctors2024.
One user even called out the government for failing doctors.
We have unemployed doctors in South Africa ?? pic.twitter.com/JOJ7N3dvWF
— Peché Africa ???? (@pmcafrica) January 29, 2024
But on Monday afternoon, 5 February, Phaahla briefed the media and emphasised that while there was a rise in the number of unemployed graduates across many sectors, in the public health sector the employment of health professionals has been on a steady increase.
According to Phaahla, over the past five years there has been a steady increase in employment of medical doctors. As of 2024, about 2 210 medical interns have been appointed as compared to 1 472 appointed in 2018, where in community service to date 2 101 have been appointed as compared to 1 340 in 2020.
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This increase, according to Phaahla, has happened despite the funding constraints.
He said the provincial departments of health continues to actively engage provincial treasuries to find ways of addressing the unemployment of health professionals, including medical doctors.
According to Phaahla as of now, all those graduates who were eligible for placement to do internship have been placed.
Equally to this, he said that all those who finished internship and were eligible to start community service have been placed.
In the beginning of January, the SA Medical Association Trade Union submitted a list of 825 medical doctors who were deemed to be unemployed as was the case in January 2023.
However, when the department checked the list against the persal system, Phaahla said it was found that out of the 825 doctors on the list, 694 had just completed their community service on 31 December 2023.
“Most of them have applied for medical officer posts in the various provinces. The provinces advertise posts in line with the employment guidelines as issued by the Department of Public Service and Administration. However, they place adverts at varying times depending on several factors, especially budget availability,” he said.
