The plight of doctors working in rural areas, an issue that was forced to the fore by a recent Constitutional Court case, has been a simmering problem for SA’s health-care professionals and officials for years. The [s]Financial Mail[/s] reports that even with the community service programme, government has been battling to recruit and retain doctors in rural hospitals and clinics. The move was mostly resisted by young interns. ‘The issue is inequality between urban and rural hospitals. There’s no equity in the distribution of resources,’ says [b]Rural Doctors Association of Southern Africa (Rudasa)[/b] chair Dr Desmond Kegakilwe. Due to poor implementation of the community service programme across the provinces, Kegakilwe says, rural district and regional hospitals as well as community health-care centres still receive a disproportionately low number of community service medical officers. The burden of disease and the low personnel numbers in rural areas create an unbearable workload, making placement there particularly unattractive for junior doctors. Compounding this are the constant shortages of drugs and outdated, poor equipment.
[link url=http://www.financialmail.co.za/features/2014/04/23/where-no-one-wants-to-go]Full Financial Mail report[/link]