The government of South Africa has advertised for 100 new doctors but only backs can apply. The health department in the KwaZulu-Natal...
The government of South Africa has advertised for 100 new
doctors but only backs can apply.
The health department in the KwaZulu-Natal province
expanded its registrar programme for 2019 from 314 to 414. Health bosses said
the move was implemented to redress the country's historical racial imbalance
of apartheid that saw most high-ranking positions filed by white doctors.
Campaigners and human rights activists have branded the
recruitment policy 'discriminatory, unconstitutional and racist'.
Leaked documents show the department wanted to train a
total of 366 black doctors and had already recruited 32 Indian, 12 white and
four mixed race registrars, but need a further 100 black medics to meet
employment equity targets. The registrar
programme trains doctors to become specialists over a four-year period.
Ncumisa Mafunda, a spokeswoman for the health department,
said historical redress was a 'government imperative' and 'the morally and
socially right thing to do'.
She told TimesLIVE: 'South Africa, including KwaZulu-Natal,
remains an unequal society with limited opportunities for self-development for
those who were historically oppressed.
'This means 238 posts must be filled with [black] Africans
to take the current 128 filled posts to the target of 366. This implies that
the 100 new posts must go to Africans in terms of the targets, else if there
are no suitable Africans, the posts must be re-advertised.
'After difficulties were experienced in recruiting black
African candidates for these posts, a deviation was sought from the accounting
officer and, out of a total of 77 registrar posts, 21 posts will be offered to
non-Black Africans.'
But Mary de Haas, a member of Medical Rights Advocacy
Network (Meran) said that historical redress was necessary, but the policy was
discriminatory and unconstitutional, blaming mismanaging of department budgets.
She told the newspaper: 'I think it is a very bad way of doing
it. It's not really fair to sideline people who have done extremely well.
'It [the health department] spent money sending students to
Cuba instead of building local capacity, which would have sorted this out years
ago.
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