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The national department of health has refuted that there are hundreds of pharmacists, trainee and qualified doctors who are without jobs because the government failed to create posts for them.
Speaking in Pretoria today, Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi said the department received 1499 applications for internships through the centralised internship community service placement programme.
“A total of 1498 applicants were made an offer and 1476 took the offer and were placed in various hospitals. Twenty two declined the offer we made and one applicant was not placed because a case has been referred to the Health Professions Council of South Africa for review for ethical reasons which I am unable to elaborate on,” he said.
Motsoaledi went on to explain that there were still 45 positions of internship available in Bloemfontein Complex and Mofumahadi Manapo Mopeli hospitals in the Free State and Nelson Mandela Academic Hospital in Mthatha.
He said trainee doctors who had declined the offers made to them still had a chance to do their internship. Medical doctors are by law required to do their internship at public healthcare facilities before graduating as doctors.
The Junior Doctors Association of South Africa (Judasa), an organisation representing intern and community service doctors, had said that 135 interns and community service doctors were unemployed.
Motsoaledi also clarified that the list compiled by Judasa contained some errors.
“We have checked the [Judasa] lists ... whereby doctors who are said to be unemployed append their names against our placement programme online system.
“We found that 13 doctors who are on that list are duplicates, 12 are part of the 22 who declined placement and nine did not apply as required. The remaining are foreign nationals who have not yet been placed because ... we had to complete South Africans’ [placement process] first,” he said.
On the unplaced foreign nationals who were studying medicine in South Africa, Motsoaledi said that they had to place South Africans first in internship and community service.
“But, we were also still corresponding with their respective countries in terms of the Swaziland agreement. Lesotho has responded and requested that all be sent back home. We are only left with 74 foreign applications,” he said.
On the issue of qualified medical doctors who were unemployed, Motsoaledi said 1064 applied for jobs and all of them were made offers but seven refused the offers for various reasons, ranging from marriage, family responsibility, medical conditions, and religion to owning expensive property in a particular geographic location.
Motsoaledi confirmed that 795 pharmacists applied for community service.
“Of these, 716 are South Africans and have all been offered positions. However, three declined to take offers and 79 are foreign nationals.”
“We have identified 108 positions in which (those unemployed) all of them can perform their community service,” he added.
