Trade Union Solidarity is fighting on behalf of an intern doctor awaiting placement.
The Citizen reports that trade union Solidarity launched an urgent legal process against the Department of Health on 10 December on behalf of Stellenbosch University graduate Dr Bianca Lucas.
Lucas is one of scores of intern doctors waiting to be placed for mandatory community service to complete their training, and has turned to the courts for help. This follows the department’s failure to place the doctor at a medical centre or hospital after completion of her studies.
South Africa requires medical graduates to complete a two-year internship as well as one year of community service in order to practise medicine in either the public or private sector. Bianca applied to do her internship in July, as posts were initially meant to be released by the end of October this year. After a long wait, the posts were finally allocated to final year students in November, but according to the South African Medical Association (SAMA), 159 doctors, including Lucas, were not allocated posts.
“I was confronted with this crisis at the start of my final examinations which made it extremely challenging to navigate through exams. Our lives are in a limbo. We do not know if or when we will be allocated a post to start internship in January. It is daunting to not know if you should make arrangements to relocate or if you should be considering other job opportunities outside the field of medicine, since we are not allowed to work for any other employer apart from the national Department of Health,” Lucas said.
Lucas said at the height of Covid-19 pandemic they were recruited to volunteer at screening and testing facilities as well as to help with normal care duties in hospital.
“This highlights the shortages even more. The Constitution guarantees every citizen the right to medical care and health. Therefore, yes, we most definitely need to train more doctors. But training doctors and making adequate provision for them to complete their training satisfactorily goes hand in hand. I am extremely disappointed that enough funding was not budgeted for this,” she said.
Solidarity’s head of legal matters, Anton van der Bijl, said it was outrageous that the state wants young doctors to go through a process which then is delayed by the state due to their own incompetence.
Bianca said the situation was puzzling, since she and others were unemployed when there is a shortage of medical professionals in the state sector.
