The South African Medical Association Trade Union (SAMATU) says doctors in public hospitals in SA are being pushed beyond safe working limits while hundreds of qualified doctors remain unemployed.
The union claims doctors currently working in the system are putting in excessive hours beyond the guidelines set by the Health Professions Council of SA.
At the same time, more than a thousand funded posts for doctors remain vacant across the country. SAMATU has warned that the situation is not only unfair to unemployed doctors but could also put patient safety at risk.
SAMATU Junior Doctors Committee Chair, Talente Biyela, says the issue of unemployed doctors has been ongoing.
Biyela says, “Yes, definitely. This is an ongoing conversation that we have been having with SAMA. At the beginning of the year, we ran a poll to get accurate statistics from our colleagues.
We found that over 1 481 post-community service doctors were unemployed at the time. When we approached the Minister of Health, Doctor Aaron Motsoaledi, it turned out that only 480 of them would be employed.”
–SABC/ChannelAfrica–
