All 2,197 medical graduates who completed their studies in 2024 placed in an internship, Motsoaledi tells MPs

CAPE TOWN - Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi said that all 2,197 medical graduates who completed their studies last year had been placed in an internship. 

But he's not offered a solution for the estimated 1,800 qualified doctors who can’t find a placement in public healthcare facilities as he faced backlash from across the political spectrum on Friday for the situation which parties have labelled a crisis. 

During the mini-debate sponsored by ActionSA, Employment and Labour Minister Nomakhozasana Meth said doctors were not an exception in having to battle job scarcity.

It was the battle of medical doctors during debate on unemployed doctors on Friday as ActionSA's Kgosi Letlape and the Democratic Alliance (DA)'s Karl le Roux offered Motsoaledi solutions to the problem of unemployed young doctors.

Motsoaledi said that the state spends more than two billion rand to offer internships to final-year medical students while a further three billion rand is spent on the compulsory community service programme for graduates before they can register for independent practice. 

"In the past, there was no shortage of budget, that’s why people thought it was an absorption. Legally, there’s nothing like an absorption once you finish community service. I was not saying we must throw people away." 

Given the job crunch, Le Roux, a former chairperson of the Rural Doctors’ Association, questioned whether community service for graduates should still be compulsory.

"Even the most rural hospitals have a queue of doctors applying for available jobs."

Meanwhile, Letlape, a former chairperson of the Health Professions Council of South Africa, said he hoped Wednesday’s budget would make provision for employing unemployed doctors.