The Citizen reports that the Department of Health says placing young doctors for community service has become “complicated”, as most prefer working in urban areas rather than in poorer and rural communities.

SA requires medical graduates to undertake compulsory community service of two years as part of their training before they can take up positions in private or public institutions of their choosing. However, the processes have become a headache for many, some of whom had studied abroad and find themselves without community placements or unemployed after two years of community service. The medics belonging to Cosatu affiliate, the SA Medical Association Trade Union (Samatu) took to the streets in four provinces on Thursday, demanding employment. But according to the department’s spokesperson, Foster Mohale, many unemployed doctors are simply too fussy about where they are placed. “We find that we have openings in deep rural areas for community service, where there’s not even a cellphone network, but they tell us they can’t work far from home. They come with all sorts of excuses – mother is sick or other reasons. So, it’s a very complicated process,” Mohale notedf. He added that when Samatu indicated that they had a list of jobless people who had completed community service, the department discovered that many on the list had no registration numbers with the Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA) as required, while some had no identity numbers. “We asked them to go back and clean up that list, especially when it comes to HPCSA registration,” Mohale indicated. According to Samatu general secretaty Dr Cedric Sihlangu, the list of unemployed doctors keeps increasing and more than 1,000 qualified doctors don’t have jobs.

• Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Getrude Makhafola at The Citizen (subscriber access only)

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