Medical community service must focus on rural areas

SAPA

New  National Party Health spokesman Dr Kobus Gous has called on Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang to focus community service for medical students on rural areas.

Gous said on Sunday that community service, if correctly implemented, could provide the answer to medical service shortages in rural areas.

Gous was reacting to a written answer to a question from him from Tshabalala-Msimang tabled in the National Assembly last week.

The Minister said all medical students would have to do one year of compulsory community service from January 1 next year.

She said all students who completed their training as radiographers, clinical psychologists, physiotherapists, environmental health officers, dieticians, speech therapists and audiologists before 2002, would not have to do community service, but that students currently in their final year of study this year would do the service.

Gous appealed to Tshabalala-Msimang to make sure that all medical students were well informed about the importance of compulsory community service in their chosen professions. (Source:SAPA, 26 May 2002)