Profession

Over 8 000 health practitioners have been struck off the roll after failing to pay their annual fees, the Health Professionals' Council of South Africa (HPSCA) said on Thursday.

CAPE TOWN * SA's biggest doctors' group, the South African Medical Association (Sama), joined AIDS activists yesterday in opposing proposed legislative amendments to give greater powers to Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang over the Health Professions Council of SA and its allied professional boards.

Durban - A battle is brewing between the SA Medical Association (Sama) and health minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang over the proposed Health Professions Amendment Bill, which would give the minister authority to select the members of the Health Professions Council of SA and other professional boards.

South Africa is training sufficient doctors for its needs, but they do not include enough blacks or doctors prepared to serve in rural areas, Parliament's Health Portfolio Committee has been told. The country's medical schools should be producing about 1250 doctors a year, said Professor Thanyani Mariba, acting president of the Health Professions Council, who is dean of the Medical School at the University of Pretoria. But there remained a gap between blacks and whites studying for the medical professions. Last month the Health Ministry called together deans of the medical schools claiming the number of black students was not increasing enough. Prof Mariba said that in the past black students with qualifications in mathematics and science could train to become doctors or nurses. Now other fields were open to them, such as engineering or IT professions. Therefore universities had to fight over the pool of black students who qualified with science and mathematics to enter university - about 5 000 last year. (Source: The Citizen, 3 October 2001)