The Democratic Alliance (DA) on Tuesday called for a new national recruitment strategy to fill vacant doctors’ and nurses’ posts.
”In five provinces where data from both 2008 and 2009 has been made available via parliamentary replies, we have seen a 40,5% increase in nursing vacancies and a 4,1% increase in doctors’ vacancies,” said MP Mike Waters in a statement.
The party suggested removing the moratorium on the issuing of visas to health workers from Southern African Development Community countries and implementing a series of policy changes to increase the number of training institutions.
In the provinces where data was provided, the number of vacancies for doctors and nurses had increased.
Comparative data shows 30 026 vacancies in 2008 and 40 592 in 2009.
The number of vacancies for nurses has increased from 25 650 to 36 035 — a 40,5% increase.
The number of vacancies for doctors had increased by 4,1%, from 4 376 to 4 557.
”The problem is most acute in the Eastern Cape, where we have seen a massive year-on-year vacancy increase of 282%,” he said.
The number of vacancies in 2009 is lowest in the Western Cape, at 158 for doctors and 465 for nurses, though no information from the Western Cape was supplied to the DA question in 2008.
”The problem of vacancies needs to be tackled head-on with a dynamic plan to increase the number of doctors and nurses available to our health system and, more importantly, retain them.” — Sapa