Friday, 29 March, 2024
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Legal action against Department of Health for failing to place junior doctor

The SA Department of Health (DoH) faces legal action for allegedly failing to place a medical graduate at a state facility to complete her internship and community year, reports News24.

Trade union Solidarity has launched the urgent legal proceedings on behalf of Dr Bianca Lucas. According to Solidarity, the department failed to place the young doctor, after she completed her studies, at any medical centre or hospital. According to a lawyer's letter sent to the DoH in July, Lucas electronically applied, on the department's Internship Community Service Programme (ICSP) website, for enrolment as an intern in 2021.

The ICSP required Lucas to apply in three different provinces and at five different hospitals, which she did. But she still hasn’t been placed, leaving her in limbo because she doesn't know where she will work next year. ‘It is outrageous that the state will oblige young doctors to go through a process, which then is delayed by the state due to their own incompetence. Doctors are expected to complete additional internships and community years after years of study. Yet, one cannot even rely on the government to manage the basic placement within this system,’ said Anton van der Bijl, head of labour law services at Solidarity.

The Citizen notes that all medicine graduates are required to complete a two-year internship as well as one-year of community service. Without this, they are not allowed to practice medicine in either the public or private sector.

Lucas applied to do her internship in July, as posts were initially meant to be released by the end of October this year. After a long wait, the posts were finally allocated to final year students in November but, according to the South African Medical Association (SAMA), 159 doctors including Lucas were not allocated posts.

“I was confronted with this crises at the start of my final examinations which made it extremely challenging to navigate through exams. Our lives are in a limbo. We do not know if or when we will be allocated a post to start in the start of internship in January.

“It is daunting to not know if you should make arrangements to relocate or if you should be considering other job opportunities outside the field of medicine since we are not allowed to work for any other employer apart from the national Department of Health,” Lucas said.

DoH spokesperson Popo Maja told News24 there were some funding hiccups in some provinces. ‘That has caused a delay in the placement of some interns,’ but said all would receive letters of placement.

 

[link url="https://www.news24.com/news24/southafrica/news/health-dept-faces-legal-action-for-refusing-to-place-medical-graduate-20201210"]Full News24 report[/link]

 

[link url="https://citizen.co.za/news/south-africa/health/2408209/medical-graduate-takes-government-to-court-to-get-a-job/"]Full The Citizen report[/link]

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