A group of unemployed doctors, who have fulfilled their community service obligations and have been waiting for appointments, say they will continue with their peaceful sit-in at the KwaZulu-Natal Department of Health’s headquarters in Pietermaritzburg until they receive appointment letters.
This comes after the doctors met with the head of department Dr Sandile Tshabalala on Wednesday morning.
On Tuesday, the group marched to the headquarters and sat overnight in front of the building’s entrance after they were removed from inside the building by police.
In February, “The Mercury” reported that more than 100 unemployed KZN doctors marched in Pietermaritzburg and handed over a memorandum with their grievances as well as their CVs.
Dr Pamela Jali, who is a member of the group’s committee, said the 57 doctors will continue with the sit-in.
“The meeting was not fruitful and in fact it left us with more questions than it did answers … and we plan to sleep here tonight as we did last night until we get what we are looking for,” she said.
Jali said their main concerns are that while the health-care system has a shortage of doctors in hospitals and clinics, there are unemployed doctors who are available and ready to serve the community.
She said it is also concerning that the funds, which the Presidency announced was allocated for the employment of doctors, are now not as easily accessible as they thought.
“We want them to be accountable for this issue with the budget,” she said.
According to Jali, other provinces, such as Gauteng, have been posting positions. “Why is it different from province to province because as far as we are concerned the mandate was from national.”
KZN MEC for Health Nomagugu Simelane said it was unfortunate that the group decided to stage a sit-in after yesterday’s meeting was agreed upon. “We don’t believe that is how we should be negotiating.”
Simelane said the province does have vacancies that have not been filled in almost all of the hospitals and also noted that these hospitals have the ability to recruit doctors
“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.
Simelane noted that Premier Nomusa Dube-Ncube has been talking to President Cyril Ramaphosa about this matter on behalf of the provincial department.
The MEC said she has also been talking to the heads of the relevant departments to acquire funding. She acknowledged that the department had been provided with funds from the Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF).
“Those funds were meant to foot the bill for the wage agreement that was agreed upon last year.”
The MEC committed that posts will be advertised in April and all doctors, bursary-funded or not, will be requested to apply and go through the proper recruitment process.
“The agreement that we have come to is that we will centralise this process at Head Office, so that there are no vacancies that are funded but not filled. But this does not give us the right to short-circuit the process,” said Simelane.
Simelane called on the group of doctors to return to their homes and apply for the upcoming positions.
The Mercury