Empty posts or empty promises?

A parliamentary reply to questions posed by the Democratic Alliance revealed shocking statistics regarding the number of critical post vacancies within the KwaZulu-Natal Department of Health.

DA Spokesperson on Health in KZN, Dr Imran Keeka issued a statement on July 21, with the supporting documentation received from parliament.

The figures suggest the number of vacancies have skyrocketed by more than 2 000 over the last financial year.

“According to the response by KZN Health MEC, Sibongiseni Dhlomo, there are currently 9 783 critical post vacancies at hospitals and clinics in the province. This is an increase of 2 174 from the 2014/15 figure of 7 609, which in turn saw an increase of 1 859 from the 2013/14 figure of 5 750,” explained Dr Keeka.

The statistics for July 2015 revealed the following number of positions remain vacant:

– Emergency Services: 223.

– Medical officers: 295.

– Nursing assistants: 626.

– Professional nurses: 1 839.

– Nursing staff: 729.

– Nursing managers: 259.

“These figures paint a very worrying picture, from management level to nursing assistants, which can only be impacting negatively on patients,” he said. “Of particular concern to the DA are the vacancies for doctors, nurses, pharmacists and dentists.”

The figures further suggest numerous applications were received by the DoH.

The department received the following number of applications for vacant positions:

– 1 121 Applications for 295 medical officer posts.

– 14 543 Applications for 729 nursing staff posts.

– 723 Applications for 88 pharmacist assistant posts.

– 116 Applications for 14 dentist posts.

“Theoretically, these positions could be filled overnight, alleviating much of the suffering and frustration experienced by patients reliant on state health care,” claimed Dr Keeka. “Added to the province’s woes is the reduced intake of medical registrars being trained in the province, halved from approximately 90 to just 43.”

Dr Keeka said patients would not likely notice the effect of the shortages immediately. However, he alleged the medium to long term implications would be disastrous.

“The DoH has cited budget constraints as the reason for the many vacant posts. While it is clear something has to give when there are budget pressures, critical posts cannot be the casualty.”

The DA vowed to raise its concerns at the KZN health portfolio committee meeting in the coming months.

“We expect MEC Dhlomo and his officials to look again at the hard options and cut expenses elsewhere. This will require constant reviews at multiple levels including looking at models used in other provinces such as the Western Cape which has proved to have an excellent DoH,” concluded Dr Keeka.

With communities in need of healthcare on a daily basis, it is evident the situation needs to be addressed immediately. Only time will tell whether the call for intervention will fall on deaf ears.

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