Increased workloads, an escalating burden of disease and better salaries overseas are leading to a mass exodus of nurses and doctors from public health facilities in Johannesburg. The city has hired 68 new nurses since July last year but so far 55 have since resigned.In a document served to the city council earlier this month, Johannesburg's health department admits to a "risk of staff shortages, especially among the nurses and medical doctors for quite some time" and frequently makes use of temporary contract nurses "as a stopgap to mitigate the risk".Johannesburg spokesman Nthatisi Modingoane said the city's public health facilities needed more than 100 doctors.He added that the city faced a constant battle to fill vacancies left by departing health professionals."The City of Johannesburg requires about 150 nurses in order to overcome further shortages."This has reduced from 220 from the previous financial year of 2014/15."The City of Johannesburg appointed 20 doctors between October and December 2015, which has reduced the shortfall of doctors."As nurses resign the positions are being filled immediately," said Modingoane.The document further revealed that the state of affairs was compounded by inadequate funds meant to give the city a fighting chance to retain its health professionals.Recent figures on the shortage of health professionals in South Africa revealed that the country needed 14351 doctors and 44780 nurses - while Minister of Health Aaron Motsoaledi pointed out that local medical schools produced just more than 1000 doctors annually...