More than 1 000 doctors and nurses hired by Gauteng Health Department to help hospitals during the peak of the pandemic in 2021 have not been paid since April despite the provincial government announcing in March that it had allocated R600m to retain many of them.
Their contracts expired at the end of that month, reports EWN, and they say they received no money in April, and appear unlikely to receive what’s due to them this month either.
A medical doctor in one of the country’s busiest public hospitals said many of them were desperate.
“We have families to feed. We need fuel. And yet we are expected to do our work.”
The Health Department said administrative issues had caused the delay and that the issue would be resolved in two weeks.
Spokesperson Motalatale Modiba said three departments; health, e-government and Treasury, were responsible for the appointment process.
“The facilities had to to follow a recruitment and selection process to … appoint these doctors and nurses. And we had to ensure we accommodate junior doctors who are bursary holders and were not in the system,” he said.
Modiba said their salaries, along with back pay, would be processed within a fortnight.
See more from MedicalBrief archives:
DA flags non-payment of COVID-19 healthcare workers
Gauteng community nurses unpaid for three months – Denosa
Gauteng Health pays junior doctors’ salary arrears
Gauteng Health fails to pay full January salaries to dozens of doctors
Motsoaledi says he is ‘highly distressed’ over unpaid junior doctors