SA’s health authorities need to lift the moratorium on filling vacant healthcare workers’ posts as a matter of urgency or the country risks spiralling into grave crisis.
The bleak warning comes from SA Medical Association (Sama) chairperson Dr Angelique Coetzee, who on Wednesday said thousands of funded but unfilled medical posts needed to be filled before they became redundant.
“You want to lift the moratorium on the current funded posts because if it’s not lifted, the posts will become unfunded posts and they will end up as redundant posts,” she said.
“The people must also be employed permanently and not on a temporary basis as they do now,” she added.
Coetzee noted the pandemic had revealed the chronic weaknesses of SA’s healthcare system.
“We have been in a critical state in health care for many, many years.”
We have been in a critical state in health care for many, many years.
— Sama chairperson Dr Angelique Coetzee
Coetzee’s warning comes as SA’s healthcare facilities buckle under the strain of the second surge of Covid-19 infections that has hit the country harder than the first wave.
On Wednesday, Action SA – the pressure group founded by former Johannesburg mayor Herman Mashaba – announced the health department had requested access to Sama’s database of unemployed healthcare professionals.
The 721 medical professionals on the database include doctors, nurses and pharmacists as well as a handful of specialists.
The request came weeks after Action SA launched its #HireOurMedicalHeroes campaign, which called on government to take action.
Mashaba, Action SA president, said he was “delighted” that the health department had taken action.
“ActionSA launched this campaign believing it was a tragedy that unemployed SA medical professionals sit at home unemployed while our frontline medical personnel are desperate for reinforcement,” he said.
SA’s frontline medical workers were “exhausted, traumatised and devastated by the deaths of 436 deaths and 43,000 infections of their colleagues”, said Mashaba.
“This takes place at a time where South Africans are dying in the corridors of hospitals due to insufficient medical personnel, among other reasons.”
Democratic Nursing Organisation of SA (Denosa) president Simon Hlungwani said there was a “definite shortage” of nurses in SA’s public hospitals.
Many hospitals were unable to operate at full capacity because there was not enough trained staff available, he said.
“If someone goes to quarantine, there are not enough staff to cover shifts.”
It is a tragedy that unemployed SA medical professionals sit at home unemployed while our frontline medical personnel are desperate for reinforcement.
— ActionSA president Herman Mashaba
In Limpopo, where hospitals are under severe strain as Covid-19 infections skyrocket, recently qualified nurses had been sitting at home since January, as the provincial health department said it did not have funds to employ them, he added.
The worker shortage has been looming for some time, say insiders, and is the result of a divide between funded and unfunded structures.
While there are budgets allocated to funded positions, unfunded positions are those that the department would like to fill but for which no money is available.
However, as departments strive to reach budget targets, unfunded posts tend to be made redundant.
The health department’s human resources for health (HRH) strategy estimates that a further 97,000 healthcare workers will be needed by 2025 to ensure an even spread among provinces.
Meanwhile, Action SA estimated there were 40,000 vacant positions for healthcare workers.
“Even if they are wrong – let’s say it’s 20,000 – it’s still a helluva lot,” said Coetzee.
“The problem is there’s a shortage.”
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