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South Africa: Eleven Tunisian Doctors Deployed in Mpumalanga
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BuaNews (Tshwane)
8 May 2008
Posted to the web 8 May 2008
Nelspruit
The Mpumalanga Department of Health has deployed 11 Tunisian doctors in the province to address the staff shortages there.
On Wednesday, the doctors were deployed in different hospitals where they are experiencing an acute shortage of doctors.
The department said in a statement that a further 27 doctors are expected in the province in different batches pending the processing of work permits and related logistics.
"We welcome the Tunisian doctors in our province, and indeed we do believe that their stay in the province will add a necessary impetus in our efforts of providing quality and effective health care services to all our people in the province," said MEC Sipho William Lubisi.
The doctors are part of the government-to-government agreement between Tunisia and South Africa that allows South Africa to recruit doctors from Tunisia, on a three year treaty non-renewable contract.
The province has reportedly been severely under-staffed and needs at least 9 000 state doctors.
For a population of about 3.5 million, most of them depending on public health system to provide services, the department has about 700 doctors for its 32 hospitals and 279 clinics.
For this, in February, national department gave the province a deadline of six months to fill all vacant and advertised posts.
The province is working on a recruiting and retaining strategy to lure health professionals to ensure that in the medium to long term the province is able to have home grown skills that are likely to be in the province for longer periods to service our people.
The department has also engaged health professions agencies to provide locum doctors and private doctors render services during weekends.
In a bid to address shortages, about 625 students were sent to various universities in the country to study all health and allied professions while 30 are currently in Cuba studying medicine.
The province has also put in place, short, medium and long term interventions to address all the pull and push factors that limit their capacity to recruit and retain health professionals in the province.
In the short term, the department has begun to look into increasing salaries to bring them on par with their sister provinces who have in the past paid better salaries than they did.
"We are also looking into issues of career pathing for our health professionals by offering them bursaries to either specialise or improving their qualifications," said the department.
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In partnership with universities the department is also offering Family Medicine studies for doctors who want to specialise in family medicine.
In the medium term, the department would continue to offer and increase the number of bursaries that it offers to local students who wish to study health professions.
"With all these measures we are undertaking, I have a firm belief that our department will become employer of choice to many health professionals," said Mr Lubisi.
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