Luphert Chilwane
6 July 2009
Johannesburg — THEIR passion for service has had two undergraduate medical students from the Medical University of South Africa (Medunsa) and the University of KwaZulu-Natal taking care of patients in public hospitals while doctors were striking to get a 50% pay hike.
Pragasi Pillay, a final-year medical student at Medunsa, says her love for the profession will keep her motivated when she starts working next year as an intern. "As a medical student, I always look up to senior doctors for courage, but now, I feel exactly the pain that they are feeling of working under pressure with limited resources."
Pillay says during the public- service doctors' strike, undergraduate students found themselves thrown into the deep end, administering drips and doing rounds.
"I have already started tasting the real environment, doing the work of senior doctors.
"There is a myth about the profession, people believing that it is the most paying profession. Personally, I do not want to think that way," she says.
It is the role of the government to make the profession attractive so that skills can be retained, she says.
"Most poor people in this country cannot afford private healthcare. This is the only sector that can reach out to poor people."
Her concern is about students who suddenly change their minds, jumping into other professions because of "remunerations".
"I am not sure whether the government is deliberately holding the sector at ransom by not rewarding doctors well, but doctors are just like everyone else, raising families."
She was puzzled by the government's response to the salary demands, "because Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi used to work in the public health sector. He should know better."
Mathabo Hlahane, a fourth- year medical student at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, who has already paid more than R100000 to complete her degree, says she chose the profession because she needed something that could challenge her social position.
"I grew up with a passion for helping people. For me, it is not about money," she says.
She believes doctors deserve better wages because they have studied hard to get where they are. She would never have thought that doctors would strike.
"The strike is a concern to us as aspiring doctors, but we understand their plight because doctors are working with old-fashioned medical equipment, they are understaffed.
"I do not think that the public health sector is losing its value; it has a space in the society."
Hlahane says there is a need to invest money and resources in the system because health is a cornerstone of the country's existence.
She says enough should be allocated to health workers in the budget.
"Working 36 hours nonstop is not child's play, (and is) proof that most health workers are passionate about their work. But passion alone cannot pay bills," she says.
Prof Edward Webster, a labour sociologist at the University of the Witwatersrand, says the medical profession is a key indicator of the country's success in healthcare.
Doctors need to be rewarded well to keep them motivated.
Webster, who will teach in Germany as a visiting professor for a year, says the strike by state doctors shows there is an "unregulated conflict" causing problems.
"We need to find ways of regulating the system without disrupting it." State doctors are being neglected and forced to work in poor working conditions for low pay. "There is clearly a major problem in their work place. It is time to have a better system."
Most hospitals are devalued, operating without proper infrastructure . Doctors are just telling the government that they cannot work with less developed infrastructure , Webster says.
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