Unemployed medical doctors in Mpumalanga have marched to the provincial government offices to demand jobs. The doctors, who were offered bursaries by the government to study medicine, accuse the Department of Health of failing to employ them.
The protest march was organised by the South African Medical Association Trade Union (Samatu).
Qualified medical doctors who were given bursaries by the government to study medicine took to the streets in Mbombela to vent their frustrations at being unemployed.
The doctors claim that when they returned from university, they were given internships hoping that at the end of the programme they would be absorbed into the system. For some, when the programme ended they were kicked out.
Handing over their memorandum of grievances, Samatu’s Provincial Chairperson, Dr Mandla Mathabe, accused the government of doing very little to reduce the high unemployment rate.
“Firstly, the main issue is the unemployment over time for doctors from Mpumalanga. We are now championing the issue of safety and security, which was addressed in 2024. Seemingly, they still areas of concern and obviously in every engagement we have, we are going to have an establishment of a health faculty in UMP or establishment of a medical school completely in every districts and we need mental healthcare institution. It means we will have three.”
The unemployed medical doctors say the struggle to secure an employment, while possessing qualifications is frustrating.
Meanwhile, Health MEC, Sasekani Manzini, says her department has already advertised 25 positions for medical doctors.
Provincial Health Spokesperson Dumisani Malamule says budgetary constraints remain a challenge to employ all of the unemployed doctors in the province.
“As and when we have a budget, we will then advertise the post of doctors and depending on the budget that we have. As of today, we have advertised about 25 posts of doctors, but the assessment, when it was presented during a meeting with the MEC and Cosatu and Samatu, we identified about 58 people who are unemployed as doctors, whereas Samaru came and presented about 78, which include those that went privately and studied medicine. But they are now unemployed. But I can say those people are actually qualified doctors. The policy says as and when we have budget we can then advertise the post and then they apply,” says Malamule.
Samatu’s march to address the issue of unemployed doctors:
