Admin failures over medical internships prompts health department to get early start on 2019 placements
The Department of Health has committed itself to an early start to the application process for 2019 medical internships, in an attempt to stem the current crisis. A special committee is expected to iron out 2017’s problems as well as establish new timelines as early as February. Internship and community service allocations have been fraught with administrative failures, with the department scrambling to post graduates in the final weeks of 2017. That’s after the department was kicked into gear by a social media campaign by final-year medical students, concerned over whether they would have adequate preparation time to take up their hospital posts in January this year. "The experience of what’s happened in 2017 is a lesson for us to start now. It’s a struggle every year, but there’s a team that will be meeting in a week or two’s time to plan for the 2018 registration process," said Dr Anban Pillay, deputy director-general of health regulation and compliance at the department. Pillay ...
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