Several dentists working in Eastern Cape hospitals have been sent from pillar to post as they try to find out why they haven’t been paid
Glenda Daniels and David Macfarlane
Ten dentists doing community service at various hospitals in the Eastern Cape have not been paid and are considering a work stoppage if their plight continues.
They also deplore the lack of basic dental equipment at their disposal, saying they are too often forced to extract teeth when curative treatment would be preferable.
The dentists have repeatedly approached the national Department of Health which assigns newly graduated doctors and dentists to their sites of community service the provincial department and Eastern Cape MEC for Health Dr Bevan Goqwana, and say they have been as often fobbed off. They complain that government officials don’t seem to know about their existence.
Goqwana told the Mail & Guardian last week the dentists “would have the money in their hands” by Wednesday. They remain empty-handed. Goqwana now says the pay cheques will be issued next Tuesday.
A dentist from Sir Henry Elliot hospital in Umtata, Liesl Cedres, says she is fed up with the situation: “Their phones just ring. We were given letters of appointments, yet have not been paid. You feel so small. No one is listening. Nothing gets done in Bisho. There is no equipment here, besides broken stuff, so we end up doing extractions which are supposed to be the last resort.”
Dentists from other hospitals Cecilia Makiwane, Butterworth, Victoria, and Sir Henry Elliot are also affected, with one saying she was told there was no record of their appointments and no salary numbers.
A dentist from Cecilia Makiwane hospital says the provincial MECs for finance and health have made serious administrative blunders. “I was told we were given positions that were frozen … They have no idea what they are doing. The facilities at this hospital are terrible. We are doing between 30 to 50 extractions of teeth a day, instead of what health policy has trained us to do prevention and fillings.”
The MEC for health promised he would speak to the MEC for finance, who in turn said he would speak to the MEC for health, says a dentist from Butterworth hospital. “They have not come to a decision. We are angry. No one is phoning us to tell us what is happening, we have to keep running after them and they don’t tell us anything. In the meanwhile, we have things to pay for, such as our student loans.”
Goqwana acknowledges that the provincial health department bears responsibility for the delay in paying salaries to the dentists, who started their year-long community service in July. The problem goes back to the previous intake of community service dentists, he says, when the province discovered they were being paid out of the wrong grant. Rectifying this administrative error has caused the delay.
Responding to dentists’ complaints about equipment Goqwana admits there has been a problem but not because of a shortage of money. The official in charge of organising dental equipment has not been located in the head office in Bisho, he says, which has led to “problems of coordination … The [equipment] problem will be solved quickly,” he says.
A spokesperson for the Ministry of Health said they are still waiting for a detailed report from the Eastern Cape health department on what has caused the delay in payment.