When Nobuhle Makhaya graduated from the University of KwaZulu-Natal’s medical school in 2021, she hoped not only to help her own family but also to bring quality healthcare to patients in her community.
But after nine years of training, including a two-year internship and completing her mandatory community service at Standerton Hospital in Mpumalanga in December, she remains unemployed. Makhaya said she has been applying for jobs at hospitals in Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal with no luck.
“All I want is a job. We know there are patients who don’t have doctors to take care of them because there is a shortage of doctors but here we are, unemployed,” she said.
If the government can bail out dysfunctional state enterprises, it should also prioritise the health system, said Makhaya.
She joined about 150 unemployed health graduates who marched through the city centre in Pretoria on Friday, 31 January, demanding urgent action from National Treasury. They also want infrastructure and health facilities to improve, for staff shortages to be addressed and for unemployed doctors, dentists, pharmacists and nurses to get jobs.
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The march was led by the South African Medical Association Trade Union (Samatu) and supported by the Democratic Nursing Organisation of South Africa (Denosa), the South African Medical Student Union, and the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu), among others.
Protesters marched from the Union Buildings to Treasury’s offices. They claimed that more than 1 500 doctors are currently unemployed in the country.
They called for finance minister Enoch Godongwana to be fired for failing to increase the budget for health workers.
About 150 people marched through Pretoria’s city centre on Friday afternoon. Photo: Silver Sibiya
Samatu President Tshilidzi Sadiki said, “All these funding challenges are man-made and some of them are by the minister. We are saying to President Cyril Ramaphosa to please recall him.”
Sinehlanhla Makhoba, who graduated from dentistry at the University of Western Cape in 2023, said many of her peers had student loans they were unable to pay back because they were still unemployed.
“There are fewer of us graduating each year because only four universities offer dentistry.”
The Richards Bay-born graduate said the situation has forced them into the private sector.
Samatu’s Mpumalanga treasurer Thulane Ramasehla said, “There are over 1 500 unemployed doctors, more than 500 physiotherapists and 1 000 pharmacists. And all of them are ready to work.”
Stadi Mngomezulu, deputy director-general of corporate services at the National Treasury promised to respond to the marchers’ memorandum in two weeks.
Percy Mahlathi from the national department of health briefly addressed the crowd and said that minister Aaron Motsoaledi had made an appeal to Treasury. “We fully understand and agree that there is a problem, and there is an even bigger problem of youth unemployment in the country,” he said.
This article was first published by GroundUp.
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