|
|
|
Dire staff shortage hampers health sector
Bonny Verwey
2006-03-17
The KwaZulu-Natal health sector is short of about 20 000 medical professionals who would enable it to operate very efficiently, the health department has said.
Health spokesperson Leon Mbangwa said the sector in KwaZulu-Natal could
"take up to about 90 000" employees who would enable it to perform
"ideally", but it could still operate with about 70 000 professionals.
"However, at present, the province is operating with "close to 60 000
employees".
"We are in desperate need of medical staff and
if we could get an extra 20 000 staff, then we could operate very efficiently.
"We have been advertising positions and trying to recruit more personnel,
but it is not easy to get applicants coming through," he said.
Mbangwa said the shortage was an international problem even in developed
countries, adding that South Africa had suffered "a lot of poaching"
from such countries.
"The obvious thing is that developed countries will be able to offer better
incentives," he said.
He added that in the past, the department had approached other countries to
entice staff back to South Africa and had also poached professionals from other
less developed countries.
Mbangwa said the department was trying to attract
young people and engage them in scientific studies at high school to create a
general interest in the medical field, which would increase the intake of
medical professionals.
Mbangwa said he hoped a strategy would be put in place by the end of the year to
discourage staff from heading for "greener pastures" abroad.
He said implementing the strategy was a "bit tricky" because of
budgetary constraints and the classification of what qualified as a rural
hospital.
He said this was important as rural hospitals suffered the highest staff
shortages because of a lack of housing and transport in those areas, in spite of
existing incentives for rural health care workers.
Noel Desfontaines, spokesperson for the Health and Other Service Personnel of
South Africa Union, said:
* Nurses were working in very difficult circumstances.
* Were expected to accept unreasonable workloads.
* Work outside their scope of practice.
* Were increasingly being put at risk of professional negligence because of the
lack of safe and adequate staffing.
He added that because of the increasing numbers of reports of professional
negligence, South Africans often perceived nurses in a negative light and it was
often stated that nurses no longer cared for patients.
"Very little is, however, mentioned about the very difficult and
unacceptable conditions under which nurses work and the impact the shortage of
nurses has on the nursing profession in South Africa.
"The nurses in the public sector are having to work in conditions where
there is poor equipment and canteens," he said.
A statement by the national health ministry released this week revealed that
only 1 596 of the 3 658 pharmacists' posts available in the country were filled.
However, Julian Solomon, chairperson of United SA Pharmacies, believed the
solution to this problem was "so simple, it's laughable".
"Make the pharmaceutical industry viable so that pharmacists can get paid
their worth and will not have to go and work overseas.
"Despite the public opinion on how much pharmacists are making, they are
not paid their true worth in terms of being professionals who have studied for a
long time," he said.
Solomon said offers of better financial working conditions abroad made it
difficult to find pharmacists locally.
According to the ministry, the highest number of vacancies for pharmacists was
in KwaZulu-Natal, with 1 271 of the 2 062 vacant posts not filled.
Mbangwa said the department was working towards filling the vacant pharmacists'
posts needed to ensure and maintain the basic provision of services to patients.
He said the department in the province had, so far, filled more than 60 percent
of the posts needed to operate at this level.
|
News
