The Health Department in Limpopo has welcomed a team of 28 specialist doctors who have already been placed at various hospitals.
The doctors provide services such as orthopaedics and general surgery. Health MEC, Phophi Ramathuba, hosted an event to welcome the doctors in Polokwane on Thursday.
About 10 000 health professionals will be hired nationally – this was outlined in the national stimulus package.
The country’s public health care system is gearing up for an improvement as health professionals are employed in internship and community service positions.
The numbers employed in the various provinces will be based on the stimulus package that Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi announced in December. They include pharmacists, Community Service Doctors and nurses.
The Eastern Cape will hire about 1200 while KwaZulu-Natal will employ just above 1800. In the Free-State, 550 health workers are expected to be placed, while Mpulamalanga will hire close to 80.
Gauteng takes the biggest number at 2 147, while the Northern Cape will hire close to 400 workers. North West and the Western Cape will hire 1 054 and 979 health professionals respectively.
The new batch of specialists have already started working at different hospitals. Their expertise in medical fields such as kidney health, eye care, general surgery and orthopaedic surgery is expected to benefit communities. In Limpopo, the first group consists of 28 specialist doctors.
The Health Department believes the groups of specialists in areas such as Neurology which deals with brain injuries – will improve the delivery of health services.
MEC Ramathuba says there are still challenges in terms of getting more specialists.
“What we can reassure the people of Limpopo is that we have got a total number of twenty eight medical specialists, eleven of them are starting now in January but we are still going to continue to recruit and make sure that our medicals school becomes strong, there are certain specialties that as a province we were struggling with, the biggest challenge was with general surgery today we are able to say just today we have a head of department who is appointed.”
The University of Limpopo’s medical department has also contributed in training the doctors. The Vice-Chancellor of the University, Professor Mahlo Mokgalong, says this is however not the first group to be produced from the institution.
“The specialists we are welcoming today are not the first specialists, we have specialists we have professors already hence the accreditation we have from the Health Professions Council this just an addition which I think is a real strengthening of what we have we are now adding 28 to what we already have.”
Orthopaedic surgeon, Dr. Adolph Molepo, is among the first group of specialists to start work at hospitals in the province. He will be based at Letaba hospital outside Tzaneen. He says he hopes to bring about positive change at the hospital.
“There is a huge backlog of orthopaedic patients in our province so for me it was an opportunity for me after training it takes a number of years to train but after training that feeling inside where you say let me go back to my community and offer what you have learnt so the backlog currently have in the province is quite huge and no single person can sort out everything.”
