Hospitals fall short

The Department of Health needs 83043 more professionals, says a draft human resources strategy document on the department's website.

The draft sets out how many paramedics, nurses, doctors and dentists the department needs to hire for state facilities, and how long it will take to reach the targets.

There are 554 anaesthetists in the state sector, but 1299 more are needed. The sector has 477 surgeons, but needs another 730.

To implement the proposed national health insurance scheme, the department must have a sufficient number of doctors and nurses.

In all categories, it is far below the required ratio of staff to population.

In some provinces, annual staff turnover is 80%.

To meet its targets by 2025, the department plans to attract 1650 anaesthetists and 1049 surgeons from abroad, and train more specialists locally. There are now 3004 foreign doctors working in this country.

From 2002 to 2010, 11700 doctors graduated from South Africa's eight medical schools but only 4403 remained in public hospitals after their internship and community service.

Doctors and nurses leaving South Africa were "conservatively estimated at an annual rate of 25%", according to the document. This is due primarily to " poor working conditions in the public sector and not personal circumstances".

There are 8589 students studying medicine in all years and the 2025 plan is to increase this to 15549. The document reveals the need for:

• 4914 paramedics;
• 4294 general practitioners;
• 528 orthopaedic surgeons;
• 416 gynaecologists;
• 1407 advanced midwives;
• 16675 professional nurses
• 6434 nursing assistants;
• 405 internal medicine specialists;
• 407 ICU nurses; and
• 4270 primary healthcare professional nurses.