Health professionals in the Eastern Cape are urging the provincial government to urgently absorb unemployed medical practitioners into the public healthcare system, warning of a deepening employment crisis among qualified staff.
The group staged a march ahead of Premier Oscar Mabuyane’s recent State of the Province Address (SOPA), arguing that while hospitals face chronic staff shortages, trained professionals remain without posts.
Khulekani Dlamini, an unemployed doctor who addressed the protest, said at least 126 doctors in the province are currently without work. He added that eight dentists are also unemployed, while the number of jobless nurses is believed to be significantly higher.
Dlamini said the crisis has persisted for some time and raised concerns about alleged irregularities in the recruitment process. He claimed that some candidates appear to secure positions ahead of others who have waited longer on official employment lists.
“We don’t know whether it is because of connections that some people are able to jump the queue and get employment,” he said.
Earlier this year, Mabuyane acknowledged the shortage of doctors across the province but cited financial constraints within the Department of Health as a major barrier to expanding posts. He pointed to mounting budget pressures, including unbudgeted medico-legal claims, as limiting the department’s capacity to recruit.
At the time, the Premier said government was considering both short- and long-term solutions. “We are exploring interventions that will enable us to absorb more doctors into the system, including partnerships with the private healthcare sector, while we stabilise the department’s finances,” Mabuyane stated.
Healthcare workers, however, argue that the situation presents a stark contradiction: high unemployment among trained professionals on the one hand, and overstretched public health facilities on the other.
They insist that urgent intervention is needed-not only to address unemployment, but to strengthen service delivery in a province where access to quality healthcare remains uneven.
