South Africa’s public hospitals have more than 10,831 vacancies for nurses and 1,339 unfilled posts for doctors, Health Minister Dr Joe Phaahla revealed in a written reply to parliamentary questions posed by Freedom Front Plus MP Philip van Staden.
Phaahla said due to general budget cuts, introduced by the National Treasury as part of fiscal consolidation in the Public Service, the cost of employment was negatively affected and not all posts could be filled simultaneously.
“This has resulted in stringent measures implemented to control filling of positions, including key line function posts to avoid over expenditure on compensation of employment,” Phaahla wrote.
Phaahla said the national department has introduced several interventions to address the shortage of health workers in health facilities. These included prioritisation of the posts in the annual recruitment plan where funding permitted, prioritisation of the posts for conditional grant funding and filling of replacement posts considered and approved weekly.
There were 1,339 vacant doctor posts in state hospitals. Limpopo has 414 vacancies, followed by KwaZulu-Natal with 257, Gauteng 174, Mpumalanga 123, Free State 110, Eastern Cape 108, Western Cape 66, North West 44 and Northern Cape 43.
KwaZulu-Natal had the highest number of nursing vacancies (3,603), followed by the Eastern Cape (2,183) and Gauteng (1497). Limpopo had 806 vacancies, Free State 799, North West 622, Mpumalanga 569, Western Cape 526 and Northern Cape 226.
Responding to separate questions from Democratic Alliance Shadow Health Minister Michele Clarke, Phaahla said 2,419 doctors were confirmed as having met the requirements of completing their degrees in December 2021. This made them eligible for medical internship from January this year.
“The total number of nurses who were confirmed as having met the requirements of completing their degrees in December 2021, that made them eligible for community service for January 2022, are 3,196,” he said.
Phaahla said 2155 community service doctors have completed their medical internship and were eligible to be placed as community service doctors in the 2022 cycle. A total of 43 medical community service doctors, 10 medical interns and 12 community services nurses were placed, respectively into positions.
“However, they have since rejected their placements due to various reasons and therefore remain unemployed,” he said.
IoL reports that While the Gauteng government was making efforts to fully reopen the Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Hospital, there have been 220 staff resignations since the fire last year, and there are currently 677 vacant posts.
This was revealed by the Gauteng Health MEC Nomathemba Mokgethi in her written reply to questions by the DA’s health spokesperson Jack Bloom in the provincial legislature. “The reduction of staff is due to resignation, retirement, death and contract expired’” and “staff resignations were related to better remuneration, promotions and travelling costs between home and work”, she said.
Mokgethi also said that there was a shortage of professional nurses, critical care and psychiatrically trained nurse specialists. She added, however, that management was working tirelessly to make certain that the remedial work was done for the working environment to be compliant with the Occupational Health and Safety Act. “Replacement posts are advertised, and recruitment process is followed to replace the resigned employees,” she said.
See more from MedicalBrief archives:
Gauteng Health admits to ‘critical’ shortage of nurses
Charlotte Maxeke debacle places ‘enormous load’ on Helen Joseph Hospital
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Retirement boom and training drought — SA’s looming nursing crisis