The Public Servants Association of South Africa (PSA) in KwaZulu-Natal says the Health Department needs to deal with its mismanagement and corruption and not shift blame for its failures.
This comes after a group of unemployed doctors protested at the offices of the provincial Health Department in Pietermaritzburg where they handed the MEC and the deputy minister of health a memorandum of demands.
They are calling for health officials to urgently place them at hospitals.
PSA Provincial Chairperson Mlungisi Ndlovu says urgent interventions need to happen as doctors are currently overworked.
“We are facing a crisis that needs to be attended. We call for the interventions of the minister and also the president because there was a question that was asked to the minister. They seem to be unclear of what is expected. Our members who are doctors, they are overworked. The public complains about the service but what is important is that they must be able to place these doctors because we believe if they can reprioritize things, they will be able to place them.”
Solution
Deputy Health Minister Doctor Sbongiseni Dhlomo says they will work with unemployed doctors to find a solution to their placement challenges.
Dhlomo was addressing doctors who marched in Pietermaritzburg to demand employment.
He says the department is calling for an exemption of budget cuts to fund more jobs.
“The past 3 days there have been some discussions between the Minister of Health and our Minister of Finance in this regard, and I’m looking forward to the State of the Nation Address debate by our Minister tomorrow at 2pm because his first point will be positively on this matter, and we hope that we improve. There is a positive story coming in from the memorandum of the doctors here to say please can it be going forward; the budget of health be protected from being cut. There is a positive story they are actually agreeing with some of the things that we have said.”
