By Katlego Sekhu
Health Minister Joe Phaahla has attributed the high number of unemployed medical graduates to the increasing pressure on healthcare budgets, in part due to the large salary bill.
Prof. Alex Van Den Heever, Chair of Social Security Systems Administration and Management Studies at Wits University joined 959 Breakfast to make sense of some of the challenges in this regard and how they can be mitigated.
Prof. Alex Van Den Heever pointed out that the problem we have is that the government is not effectively managing the government as a whole. “This has a knock-on effect on the health system,” he expounded.
“Part of the failure of government finances is that the economy has been robbed because of corruption at the central level.”
In addition to this, he highlighted that there was an agreement to give big salary increases to government staff, which was not budgeted for.
“The consequences of that were transferred to the provincial government, which impacted health and basic education.
“Those are things that have nothing to do with the health system but have something to do with the way the government is running its business.
“Then we’ve got a further issue, which is that we don’t have a coherent framework in place for health professionals in South Africa, which results in how many health professionals we generate and our ability to absorb them,” said Prof. Alex Van Den Heever in part.
For a full, in-depth discussion, listen to the podcast.
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