Daily News reports that South Africans will soon be able to get a glimpse into the lives of doctors who have to deal with 30-hour shifts, trauma cases, casualties, short-staffed emergency units and long queues of irate patients.
A documentary, Doc-U-Mentally: Last Doctors Standing, premieres at the Jozi Film Festival next month. The film is set mainly at Ngwelezane Hospital in Empangeni, KwaZulu-Natal, and features doctors from diverse backgrounds working in different disciplines. Viewers will see what doctors see on a daily basis – gunshot wounds, stabbings, near drownings and trauma caused by road crashes – and how doctors manage to stay awake and alert throughout their shifts.
Doctors’ long working hours came under the spotlight after the death of a Cape Town medical intern in a car crash in June. The Western Cape department of health has since reduced doctors’ shifts from 30 hours to 24 hours, while the HPCSA has also limited shifts to reduce the hours to 26 hours.
- Read this report by Sipokazi Fokazi in full at Daily News
Get other news reports at the SA Labour News home page