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Alarming Lack of Doctors

10 July 2008

In Categories: Industry News , Industry News > General

OUR state health sector is in crisis. And as much as Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang and her director-general Thami Mseleku would want to downplay the reality, we do not have the human resources to continue propping up a buckling health system. Last week Dr Clarence Mini of Africa Health Placements told South Africa's first TB conference that there are more South African-qualified doctors working abroad than there are in the public health sector commented the Star 8 July 2008.

Mini's presentantion revealed that most rural areas, which have been under-resourced and underserved for decades and continue to be so today, have around three doctors for every 100 000 patients. While provinces such as Gauteng and the Western Cape are much better resourced in terms of doctors, provinces such as Mpumalanga, North West and the Northern Cape have almost no specialist doctors. Also, what is even more baffling, Mini points out, is that while we are struggling to plug the holes with doctors from Tunisia and Cuba, doctors from various African countries are working as car attendants as their applications to work in the rural areas are declined. More than 500 qualified South African doctors work in New Zealand, over 1 300 in Canada, and many thousands in Britain and United States. This while we have more than 4 000 doctor vacancies in the public sector. What has South Africa done to address the crisis? Not much, if you go on Mini's presentation. The medical schools continue to train the same number of doctors they did in the 1970s, and the Health Department's human resources plan proposes that the doctor workforce consist of only 5% foreign doctors, this while the global average is around 25%. One does not want to be over-pessimistic or alarmist, but while Mseleku and company are having meetings, signing memorandums and defending unworkable policies, poor and sick patients who rely on the state health sector are suffering. For millions, accessing a doctor, something many of us take for granted, is the difference between life and death.

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