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DA welcomes Minister of Finance's comments on allowing private hospitals to help with the training of doctors.
As a follow-up to the budget, the DA will be submitting a list of proposals to the Health Minister that could help to extend the Finance Minister's plan
A comprehensive strategy needs to be in place to draw on the private sector in addressing the shortage of 12 000 doctors and 46 000 nurses in our public health sector.





The DA welcomes the inclusion in finance minister Pravin Gordan's budget last week of a proposal to allow private hospitals to help with the training of doctors. But ad hoc interventions such as this are not going to make a real difference to South Africa's medical worker shortage unless it forms part of a comprehensive strategy.

The DA will be submitting to health minister Aaron Motsoaledi a list of proposals that we believe should, in addition to Minister Gordhan's announcement, form part of such a plan, and which would make a real difference to South Africa's health care crisis. These include:

Firstly, lifting the moratorium on the employment of medical staff from other SADC countries. In a globalised world this kind of restriction does not contribute at all to the welfare of those countries; if a Zimbabwean doctor can't work in South Africa, he or she has many other choices.

Secondly, scrapping the quota which applies to the number of nurses that private hospitals can train.

Thirdly, adding medical personnel to the Home Affairs scarce skills data base.

Fourthly, launching an international recruitment programme. South Africa has many advantages as a destination for medical staff from all over the world. Yet these advantages have not been exploited at all, and in fact former ministers have explicitly tried to reduce the number of foreign-qualified doctors working in the country.

Finally, making it a requirement for private sector doctors to perform a certain number of hours of service in a public health facility, in order to maintain their registration.

It is wrong that in the face of a shortage of 12 000 doctors and 46 000 nurses in the public sector, the national health department does not in fact have a human resources for health care plan. A document which was labeled as such was produced by former minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang four years ago, but it contained no concrete proposals, and it had no timetables or deadlines. We need a comprehensive plan of this nature to help to address the fundamental breakdown in our public healthcare system.