SA doctors ready to Awol
2003-03-24 23:35
Cape Town - About 500 South African doctors, who completed their community service year last year, plan to leave the country this year.
This is one of the shocking findings of the South African Health Review, released by the Health Systems Trust (HST), on developments in the health system during 2002.
The report states that between 20% and 45% of doctors, dentists and pharmacists want to work overseas after completing their community service.
Most of these healthcare professionals (70%) do not plan to settle overseas, but aim to return to South Africa at a later stage.
Seven other sectors of the medical profession also started community service this year. They are physiotherapists, occupational and speech therapists, clinical psychologists, dieticians, radiographers and community health officials.
The HST review found that supervision over doctors, dentists and pharmacists during the community service period was sadly lacking.
Steve Reid of the centre for rural health at the University of Natal, says many of the senior, supervisory doctors in rural hospitals were qualified overseas and did not share the cultural frame of reference of their junior colleagues.
"Some doctors readily share their knowledge, while others do not see supporting junior doctors as part of their responsibility," Reid writes in the report.
An unpublished study, conducted among doctors in KwaZulu-Natal who are completing their community service, found that these doctors suffered significant levels of stress and burnout.
Reid says dentists completing their community service often believe that they received first world training only to end up working in third world institutions.
They say they only use a fraction of the knowledge they gained at university during this year because they can only perform basic dental procedures within the public sector.
"Medical faculties will have to pay serious attention to adapting the skills and attitudes of graduates to the realities of the health requirements of the South African public," Reid says.