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HPCSA again fails to comply with court order on foreign-qualified doctors

A group of 71 foreign-trained South African doctors has applied for a contempt of court sanction against the Health Professions Council of SA (HSPCA), its president, Prof Mbulaheni Nemutandani, the Medical and Dental Professionals Board and its chair, Prof Solomon Ratamaene, and acting registrar Melissa de Graaff, reports MedicalBrief.

The matter is scheduled to be heard on 12 November. This is the third time that the HPCSA has, seemingly through administrative incompetence, ignored High Court rulings on the matter.

The application will come as an embarrassment to Nemutandani, who recently inherited what has been described as the “poisoned chalice” of presidency of HPCSA, which is widely regarded as dysfunctional. In an interview with MedicalBrief in August, Nemutandani rejected criticisms of the way that the HPCSA had handled the registration applications of foreign doctors.

“The HPCSA will continue to value the critically needed skills and happily such skilled practitioners within the parameters of the set regulations and guiding provisions in order to protect the public as well as the health practitioners,” Nemutandani told MedicalBrief. He added; “It will be incorrect to judge the new leadership with the former.”

The contempt of court application was made to the Gauteng High Court after the doctors, in defiance of an High Court order, were yet again not invited to sit for SA’s medical board examinations. In August, a group of 109 graduate doctors successfully applied to the Gauteng High Court (Pretoria) to force the council to allow them to write either the theory or practical components of the board examinations, which, if passed, would allow them to practise.

The national Department of Health and the HPCSA were also interdicted and restrained from invoking the provisions of the New Pathway Policy Guideline which have been used to bar foreign-trained doctors from admission to practise.

The court ordered that the graduate doctors be enrolled for the Objective Structured Clinical Examinations examinations scheduled for 9 and 10 September but no invitation was sent for them to write the exams. Nor did the HPCSA invite the doctors to the alternative sitting on 28 September of the Theory examination/evaluation.

The HPCSA’s failure to abide by the court order, the founding affidavit says, was despite its assurances to the doctors that it had accepted the court order: “Arrangements are under way to enable candidates to sit for the upcoming examinations. In fact, some may have already received invitations. The only consideration was logistics … We have however implored the university to try and accommodate all those that have applied.”

As previously reported by MedicalBrief, September’s urgent application against the HPCSA was unopposed. An earlier court order to the same effect had been ignored by the HPCSA.

Advocate Rene Govender of the South African Internationally Trained Health Professionals Association had warned at the time that they would lodge a contempt applications if the HPCSA did not allow the doctors to sit for the exams on 9, 10 or 28 September. “It is about time that doctors are allowed to write the exams,” she was quoted as saying, adding that there is a “type of arrogance and contempt” towards doctors who qualified abroad.

 

See more from MedicalBrief archives:

 

Another court ruling against HPCSA on foreign-qualified doctors

 

HPCSA’s president ponders the poisoned chalice

 

High Court expresses doubts that nonchalant HPCSA is ‘fit for purpose’

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