Doctors could make millions ”out there” but they chose to stay and serve the nation, Cosatu president Sidumo Dlamini said in Durban on Friday.
”I notice that many of you are young and aspirant doctors wanting to contribute to the public service. You could have gone to the private sector but you stayed here to serve our mothers and fathers,” he said outside the Durban City Hall, as the huge crowd cheered him.
A short while later, a memorandum detailing the doctors’ concerns was handed to KwaZulu-Natal’s health minister Dr Sibongiseni Dhlomo.
In his address, Dlamini described the matter as a ”ticking time bomb” and noted that if doctors were not happy in South Africa, then the country would suffer.
”We are saying to our government that this matter is very urgent. Workers in this country have been in recession for many, many years. When salaries get lower, it is destroying the country,” he said.
On behalf of the Congress of South African Trade Unions, Dlamini thanked the thousands of protesting state doctors for remaining in the public health sector even though they were not well paid.
Dr Bandile Hadebe, chairperson of the Junior Doctors’ Association of South Africa (Judasa), which forms part of the South African Medical Association (Sama), told the crowd that the government was handling the health sector in an ”extremely inefficient” manner.
”We are committed to our patients and delivering the much needed service, but we want government to come to the game and help us,” he said.
Hadebe made reference to the oath taken by doctors and by those in power.
”We want ministers and MECs [provincial ministers] to commit to their oath so that we can commit to our oath.”
The unhappy protesters, some clad in white doctors’ coats, converged at Botha’s Garden then marched through the Durban city centre, demanding better salaries.
Some carried placards reading: ”Understaffed, overworked and underpaid”, ”Patients and doctors deserve better”, and ”Better to be a bus driver than a doctor” — referring to a news report that junior doctors earn less than bus drivers.
Police monitored the situation. Ethekwini metro police spokesperson Superintendent Joyce Khuzwayo said the protesters were ”very peaceful” and no incidents of violence were reported.
Doctors also marched in Pretoria and in Bisho, in the Eastern Cape.
They object to the poor salaries in the public sector and have called on the government to implement the OSD agreed on in 2007 and which was to have been implemented in June last year.
Sama organised Friday’s march in the hope that salaries would rise by at least 50%.
The health department has rejected the figure as arbitrary. – Sapa