Unemployed doctors offer free healthcare

UNEMPLOYED doctors took their protest against their situation to a humanitarian level this week when they gathered at the doorstep of the KwaZulu-Natal Department of Health's head office to provide free healthcare treatment to members of the public.

- BONGANI HANS

The provincial-based doctors, who graduated from various universities across the country, had since the beginning of the year staged three protest marches, begging the provincial government to give them jobs.

They said their plea had so far fallen on deaf ears.

As a result, a group of more than 40 doctors who mostly graduated from the University of KwaZulu-Natal set up a healthcare station, with five blue gazebo tents in front of the Natalia Building in Pietermaritzburg on Wednesday and Thursday.

They said that if the department did not respond to their in-kind protest, they would come back to the same venue to provide healthcare services to the public.

Among the services they provided were consultations and prescriptions, checking blood pressure and diabetes for members of the public on the busy Langalibalele Street near the city's biggest long-distance and local taxi rank.

Their spokesperson, Dr Thamsanqa Zakwe, said that despite being broke, the doctors equipped the station with various healthcare tools, which were donated to them by private practitioners.

"We have been protesting against our unemployment since the beginning of the year," said Zakwe.

He said the destitute doctors recently met with Health MEC Nomagugu Simelane to discuss their dissatisfaction with the announcement that the province had only 20 medical profession posts to be filled.

Simelane confirmed on June 25 that 20 posts were to be advertised within the next seven days as a beginning of addressing the unemployment of doctors and other healthcare professionals in the province.