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Hundreds of healthcare professionals, including at least 600 unemployed doctors supported by their peers, took to the streets of Pretoria on Monday to demand that they should be offered jobs.
The march began at 7.30am started at the Madiba and Kgosi Mampuru streets in the City of Tshwane. Waving placards, they were singing and chanting all the way to the Union Buildings.
The protest came amid the doctor-to-patient ratio in the country is at a crisis level, with hospitals nationwide in dire need of more doctors. Hospitals are also facing high patient volumes in the public sector where the ratio is one doctor per 3000 patients as opposed to the World Health Organisation's minimum requirement of at least, one doctor per 1000 patients.
Two weeks ago in another march, about 200 unemployed doctors from Durban marched to the department of health offices in Pietermaritzburg to seek solutions for the unemployment of healthcare professionals in KwaZulu-Natal.
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Dr David Marubini, the SA Medical Association Trade Union spokesperson said: “Today, plus or minus 600 doctors are still left to idle in unemployment and we are out to support them as they deliver their memorandum of demands at the Union Buildings to the president's office to hand over the written demands for government to prioritise the employment of South African doctors first in the current doctors' employment crisis.
Marubini also told City Press that the trade union and the workers decided to hand over the memorandum at the Union Buildings because they wanted the attention of the National Treasury, the presidency and the health minister in one place to get quicker responses to the unemployment crisis.
Marubini said:
Marubini said doctors had and uncertain future as posts and budgets in the health sector have been cut. “Even overtime is cut now. So tell me, where [does] the future of doctors lie? But they still face criminality and unsafety while at work, late payments of salaries and working with limited resources."
He explained further:
Marubini said the march would impact the public because doctors were out supporting other doctors and fighting for change in disgracing of doctors after studying for many years to be beggars in the health system when they are available to work anywhere in the country.
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“Challenges in the health sector should not impact patients, but it has happened. Our hands in the health sector are valuable and we are here availing ourselves as doctors to work anywhere in the province."
Marubini said it was important government to urgently find a solution to prevent future graduates from going through the humiliation of fighting for employment prospects in the same system that has trained and accredited them.
Marubini said:
Mpho Radebe, an unemployed doctor, who spoke to City Press during the march, said taking part in the protest was her last hope of getting a job.
Radebe said:
The young doctor said the thought of sitting at home for another year was depressing and causing her anxiety. “I am desperate for a job because the other sectors find me over-qualified. They turn me away because they say they can’t afford [to pay] me. But sadly, the same system that has trained me has no place for me to work,” Radebe said.
Marubini said the memorandum was received by an official from the health department. They gave the presidency seven days to respond.
The health department has said it has not financial capacity to absorb the professionals following reduced budgets over the past three years.
