City Press reports that Gauteng doctors say they will no longer work overtime if they are not paid for it, which will leave patients at public hospitals unattended.

This comes after the Gauteng Department of Health (GHoH) cut its budget for fixed overtime and many health workers were paid late this month. Some have not yet been paid for last month’s overtime. In a letter dated 7 May, the anaesthesia department at the Dr George Mukhari Academic Hospital in Ga-Rankuwa informed the CEO that no anaesthesia services would be available from the following evening due to the delay in the processing of payments. On the same day, the department for medical family care in Ekurhuleni, notified the managers they were suspending all overtime services until the outstanding payments were received. Meanwhile, a few medical staff were paid for overtime work last week, although some payments are still outstanding. Those who wanted to cease their services were allegedly threatened with dismissal and thus most medical staff in the public service were at their posts last week – whether they were paid or not. Meanwhile, the SA Medical Association Trade Union (Samatu) met on Thursday to discuss a way forward and decided to send a letter of demand to the department that all payments for overtime work must be settled by Thursday. Samatu said the doctors had thus far been “tremendously sympathetic and accommodating” regarding their situation.

• Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Magdel Louw at City Press (subscription / trial registration required)

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