Drastically fewer state specialists will ‘collapse an already terrible system further’, one doctor warns
SA is facing the risk of an even more severe shortage of specialist doctors — a scenario that would hit the state and private health sectors hard‚ and one that has the health minister "worried". In an unprecedented statement‚ the South African Committee of Medical Deans has publicly stated that the poor state of provincial health departments "destabilises" academic training of doctors. It called for more provinces to be put under national administration and for public hearings into the state of government healthcare. The head of the committee‚ Prof Martin Veller‚ who is the University of the Witwatersrand’s medical dean‚ said fewer registrars — who are specialists in training — are likely to be employed by the state in Pretoria and Johannesburg after they qualify. This is because positions have been frozen by the cash-strapped Gauteng department of health‚ as detailed in a letter sent to every hospital head and leaked to TimesLIVE. Secondly‚ specialists are currently not being hired...
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