Doctors marched to the Department of Health offices in Pietermaritzburg on Monday to demand jobs.
Over 80 unemployed doctors marched from UNISA campus on Longmarket Road to the KwaZulu-Natal Department of Health’s offices in Langalibele Street, Pietermaritzburg, on Monday.
They went to hand over their CVs and a memorandum demanding that the healthcare budget be increased to accommodate over 700 qualifying medical practitioners. The department was given 14 days to respond.
Eighty-four unemployed doctors also signed a register handed to the department.
The doctors were met by Deputy Health Minister Sibongiseni Dhlomo who said health minister Joe Phaahla had another engagement. Dhlomo said the department was working to address the issue of unemployed doctors, and that the minister would raise it this week in Parliament and question that healthcare be exempt from budget cuts.
Dr Siya Shozi, section of a “small committee” of unemployed doctors with no political affiliation mandated to liaise with the department, said the march was coordinated through a WhatsApp group. Shozi was pleased with the turnout but said it did not represent the large number of unemployed doctors in KZN and its rural areas.
Busiziwe Mancotywa, a grade one medical officer who has been unemployed since completing her training at the conclude of last year, said, “You apply for some positions where you meet the minimum requirements but for whatever reason you are never contacted”.
Mancotywa was joined by her brother, Nqaba, who is finishing his internship at Greys Hospital. He said if action is not taken now, he won’t find a job in the future.
Nomfundo Mbanjwa, also a grade one medical officer, complained about the cost of applying for jobs, including printing applications and transport to interviews. Mbanjwa says she had to sell her car to cover these costs.
Representatives from the South African Medical Association Trade Union (SAMATU) and the Public Servants Association of South Africa (PSA) joined the march and pledged support for the doctors.
© 2024 GroundUp. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
You may republish this article, so long as you credit the authors and GroundUp, and finish not change the text. Please include a link back to the original article.
We place an invisible pixel in the article so that we can count traffic to republishers. Every analytics tools are solely on our servers. We finish not give our logs to any third party. Logs are deleted after two weeks. We execute not use any IP address identifying information except to count regional traffic. We are solely interested in counting hits, not tracking users. If you republish, please carry out not delete the invisible pixel.
Eerie Mizzen
I know that this is off-topic so I will just jump right in and say that MyZA Directory has been great for my business.
Divine Quasar
A South African, an Australian and an Englishman are all having a drink
The Englishman and South African both drink from Pint Glasses, the Australian from a bottle.
The South African, upon draining his glass, drops in back down on the bar, pulls out a pistol, and shoots the glass.
\”In South Africa, there is so much sand that I never drink from the same glass twice!\”
The Australian, having drained his bottle, sets it down upon the bar and, upon seizing the South African\’s pistol, shoots his bottle.
\”In Australia, there is so much booze that I never drink from the same brand twice!\”
The Englishman, likewise having drained his glass, sets his glass upon the table, seizes the pistol the pistol from the Australian, and shoots the South African and the Australian, quite dead.
\”In England, there are so many of you bastards that I never drink with the same two twice!\”