The R14m spent on salaries for 11 Cuban doctors in Gauteng is not unreasonable, according to Kgosietsile Letlape, president of the Africa Medical Association, and former chair of the South African Medical Association, who said an objection to the expenditure was unjustified.
“We know there have been Cubans who are willing to serve our people in rural areas when we, as South Africans, were not prepared to go there,” he said, “and if they have proper employment contracts within the salary scales of public service, and they are delivering … then the DA has a problem.”
Letlape said challenges in the health sector were centred around mismanagement, which had led to the department having no money to fund posts.
“The challenges are because of misspent budgets in the health sector. It’s not that there are too many doctors – in fact, we still don’t have enough doctors in the public system – but we have no money to pay them.”
His comments were in response to criticism from the DA in Gauteng, which slammed the regional Health Department for hiring the foreign doctors amid high unemployment among local doctors.
DA shadow MEC for health Jack Bloom had said the hundreds of jobless South African doctors should be given preference, and that the contracts of the Cuban doctors should be cancelled.
In the Gauteng legislature, Health & Wellness MEC Nomantu Nkomo-Ralehoko had revealed that the provincial government spent R14m a year on the Cuban doctors who were employed at five facilities in the region, with annual pay packages ranging from R1.2m to R1.64m.
She said they were employed as part of an SA-Cuban agreement and had treaty visas to live and work here. Some of their contracts expire this year, and the department “will evaluate the staff needs at the end of their contracts”.
The Citizen article – Gauteng health department faces backlash for Cuban doctor hiring (Open access)
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