The financially and administratively challenged KwaZulu-Natal Department of Health, led by ANC’s Nomagugu Simelane-Mngadi, has finally started honouring its undertaking to hire some of the unemployed doctors idling across the province.
The department made the undertaking in June this year. This was after the doctors religiously camped outside the headquarters of the department in central Pietermaritzburg. The unemployed doctors demanded that they be given jobs.
MEC had earlier made commitments
Addressing the doctors back then, Simelane-Mngadi (formerly Simelane-Zulu) said 120 posts would immediately be made available as part of an interim intervention to begin addressing the challenge of unemployment facing medical doctors and other healthcare professionals in the province.
She cited financial challenges as being behind the inability to absorb all the doctors.
However, on Monday this week, the association of the unemployed doctors issued a statement. They alleged that despite the June undertaking, no doctor has been employed.
“Despite the release of 120 posts, KZN has still not employed a single doctor,” the association claimed.
Prior to that, the SA Medical Association Trade Union in KwaZulu-Natal issued an almost similar statement.
“The current cohort of qualified doctors has now endured 10 months without placement. While another group of community service doctors is set to complete their service soon. With no clear plan in place to absorb them,” the association said.
Process quietly kicked off
However, in response to the outcry, the department quietly kicked off the process to hire the doctors. And the association said some of the doctors have received interview calls.
“We can now confirm that they started calling people for the 20 posts they made available,” the association told Sunday World on Wednesday morning.
The department did not respond when Sunday World asked why the process to hire the doctors was delayed. This despite the fact that they previously claimed that money had been made available.
