South Africa's Department of Health has again bungled its placement system for junior doctors, reports Maverick Citizen.
By the second week of December, there were still 159 candidates facing the uncertainty of whether they would have jobs, come 1 January. Their years as interns and community service doctors are requirements to complete their medical training.
Interns and community service doctors are meant to give young graduates paid, hands-on experience. For the public healthcare sector, it boosts much-needed resources, especially in the most under-serviced areas in the country.
For many, as the weeks dragged on and as deadline after deadline lapsed, the frustration and anxiety turned to despair, Maverick Citizen writes. They started the hashtag #doctorsinlimbo, hoping to pressure the department to act. They also organised Whatsapp and Telegram groups for a flow of information between them.
One doctor told Maverick Citizen by the middle of last week that he would have to wait tables if he didn’t secure a posting. Another doctor said she would have to move back to her family home in the rural areas because she didn’t have money to continue living in the city.
Young doctors who spoke to Maverick Citizen said the placement process had amounted to being “shown the middle finger”. They have been extended scant professional courtesy with no proper communication and when their situation began looking dire, there was no effort to effectively resolve their issues. They’ve had to rely on call centre agents who are only able to give them ticket numbers and references.
They said the ICSP (Internship and Community Service Portal) has been clunky and doesn’t update information. Their universities are unable to intervene and the Junior Doctors Association (Judasa) cannot either. Judasa at least, they said, is more communicative and responsive, giving them updated information via social media.
Worst of all, they said now that the last-minute placements had been finalised – on Thursday, 10 December – the department considers its job done. These junior doctors were given just two days to accept the postings. Effectively, they could also not do post swaps with their counterparts at this late stage. Meanwhile, there is no responsibility from the DoH, still no communication or firm commitment or strategy on how it intends to sort out the problem so it doesn’t recur next year.
Popo Maja, the Department of Health’s spokesman, did not respond to media questions sent to his email and his two WhatsApp numbers.
Professor Steve Reid, director of the University of Cape Town’s Primary Health Care Directorate, told Maverick Citizen that it’s become a yearly bungle – “it’s very late to tell professional people about their work situation for next year and they have known the numbers for months”.
There are complexities in the placement systems though, with not enough posts because there is no budget to pay the salaries.
“There are students trained in Cuba returning to South Africa who swell the numbers. And there are also graduates who play a waiting game, not taking up a post they’ve been allocated, and some who just don’t show up, so they become part of what adds to the numbers in the system.”
But Reid says community service in an unequal South Africa remains necessary because it redistributes highly skilled human capacity to areas where the need remains most dire.
“There are many problems in the placement system and I know of cases where students have been in limbo for over 20 months. But over the years we have also heard of many doctors, who despite the hardships, come away from community service with incredibly positive experiences – even life-changing ones,” said Reid.
[link url="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2020-12-15-junior-doctors-left-in-limbo-after-job-placement-process-goes-awry-again/"]Full Maverick Citizen report[/link]