The South African Medical Association has issued an ultimatum to the Eastern Cape Health Department to remunerate all unpaid doctors and health workers within seven days.
Sama's acting chairperson, Dr Mark Sonderup, says failing this they will ask for the Eastern Cape Health Department to be placed under national government administration.
He says they're also demanding at that there should be no moratorium on the appointment of new doctors in a province where staff challenges are already creating difficulties in the delivery of healthcare.
Dr Sonderup says SAMA is of the view that at the core of the problem is a major breakdown in the administration of the Health Department in the Eastern Cape.
"Particularly disturbing is the fact that this issue has now arisen after the recent criticisms leveled at doctors by the department for allegedly not wanting to work in the province."
"We strongly condemn the chaos that has resulted in this adverse situation now facing the people of the Eastern Cape in terms of their healthcare," he added.
Dr Phophi Ramathuba, chair of SAMA's Public Sector Doctors committee, reiterated that the non-payment of doctors and the non-appointment of new doctors with no vacant posts being filled due to the moratorium has taken the Eastern Cape health problems to crisis proportions:
"These conditions of work are unacceptable, to say the least, for our doctors in that province and furthermore," she stressed, "they should not be held responsible should they run out of patience and opt to withdraw their services as a result."
He told Algoa FM News that "its a drastic step because it is a drastic situation. The situation as it stands at the moment in the Eastern Cape has reached intolerable proportions."
"We had the situation last week when several doctors were not paid their salary. We are getting reports, and I do add not fully corroborated, but we are receiving reports that there are community health workers that are also not been paid," he said.
"We have reports of sessional, private general practitioners, who do sessions in the public sector predominantly in the PE metro area who also say they have not received their payments for several months already."
"We stand on the verge of the First of July mark which is the mark where new doctors, or new staff usually start their posts, for example as medical officers or community service medical officers. There's a moratorium on the employment of any new doctors and other medical staff," said Dr Sonderup.
"You have a report that nurses have not been appointed in this brand, spanking new unit at Provincial Hospital, the haematology unit because of the moratorium, so its just one litany of chaos and one debacle after the other in the Eastern Cape and what we are saying is that enough is enough. We want our members and other health-care workers to receive their due salaries," he added.
"We want the senior management in the Department of Health in the Eastern Cape to be replaced because clearly they have demonstrated an incompetence or incapability to deal with the administrative issues in the province and we want this resolved in the next week otherwise we will be asking national government to place the Eastern Cape Department of Health under national administration so they can send in a team to deal with these issues."
"We cannot have a situation continue where we are about to embark on a NHI district pilot project in the province because these that are currently happening are the fundamental tenets that need to be in place for the NHI pilot programme to work. So, I'm afraid it is a drastic call and a drastic step but its a drastic situation."
