The South African Government is fast-tracking the recruitment of foreign qualified medical doctors and pharmacists to increase ”capacity building” for the implementation of the anti-retroviral roll-out plan, says Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang.
This emerged in a reply to a written question in Parliament from Democratic Alliance (DA) health spokesman Ryan Coetzee, who asked how many patients in Limpopo and Mpumalanga were receiving anti-retroviral treatment in terms of the national anti-retroviral roll-out plan and whether she had been informed of any problems in these provinces affecting the speed of the plan’s implementation.
Tshabalala-Msimang said in Limpopo there were 83 patients receiving treatment while in Mpumalanga there were 448.
The minister said the common challenges for both provinces were recruitment of staff and infrastructure problems. The provision of health services was labour intensive and a range of both clinical and management skills ”are required to deliver health services in an affordable and equitable manner.
”There is currently an imbalance in the distribution of health professionals between the public and private health care sectors, with the majority of doctors, pharmacists and dentists placed in the private sector.” In addition the migration of health professionals to developed countries had contributed to the problem of recruiting and retaining health professionals in the public sector.
But measures had been taken to attract scarce skills. These were the employment of private health practitioners while doctors were appointed at the level of principal medical officers – at better pay rates – and rural allowances had been implemented.
She said a comprehensive ”country human resources plan” should be ready for implementation by early next year.
The health minister said the ”revamping process” of identified facilities for the roll-out plan was taking place. ”Provinces are making use of temporary structures while new ones are built. Training of health care workers is also
taking place.” – I-Net Bridge