The association argues that the budget is inadequate and will not effectively address the ongoing crisis in the sector. In his Budget Speech on Wednesday, Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana announced an addition of R28.9 billion ($1 592 940 billion) to the health budget, which is intended to retain approximately 9 300 healthcare workers in the country’s hospitals and clinics.
 

Godongwana also mentioned that part of this funding would be used to hire 800 post-community service doctors.

SAMA Chairperson Dr Mvuyisi Mzukwa, “You’ll recall what the Minister was saying, as part of the public share, the funds would go to provinces but provinces would not prioritize healthcare in in their allocation at a provincial level. So, we’re complaining, we’re saying that provinces must prioritize the hiring of doctors, nurses and other healthcare workers. So that we avoid, these problems that we’re talking about where you find that we have a poor quality of healthcare because of a dire shortage and also the burn out on those are in the system already.”

 

Dr Mzukwa has also called on government to ensure that it addresses the issue of corruption in the sector before allocating the budget.

“You can imagine how much money that we’ve lost, just 2009 to 2013 we lost about R24 billion due to corruption. And we’re still investigating about R14 billion or so that was lost due to COVID-19 and the R3.4 billion that was lost to corruption at Thembisa Hospital. So, you cannot allocate these funds and do nothing about eradication of corruption in the system.”

--SABC--