Programme director
Deputy Minister of Health
MECs for Health
Cuban diplomats,
HE the Cuban Ambassador, Angella Villa Hermandez,
Acting Chancellor, Professor Juan Ceballos,
The Head of the Cuban Medical Collaboration, Dr Tomas Reinoso,
Gauteng Provincial Programme Co-ordinator, Dr Victor Figueroa
All representatives from the Republic of Cuba
Heads of Health
The Vice Chancellor
Deans of medical schools
Distinguished guests
Ladies and gentlemen
It is a great honour and privilege for me to address the congregation that marks the fifth graduation ceremony of South African medical doctors that have been trained in Cuba.
It is indeed a very special day to our sixty three medical graduates, gathered here today with their families and friends to celebrate their hard earned achievement.
You have proved to be true soldiers that have risen to the challenges of academic rigour, far away from the support of your loved ones. You have succeed where many others failed in establishing a better tomorrow for yourself, families and communities. You have done us proud as ambassadors of your country. I have no doubt that you will have the same fighting spirit to overcome many challenges ahead of you.
You must remember that your achievement today is not the end of the road of your struggle but the beginning of yet another phase of challenges in your working lives. It is the dawn of a new phase that comes with even greater responsibilities, that requires accountability, strategic leadership and adherence to the pledge (Hippocratic Oath) that you made today to keep up ethics of medical profession.
You have been equipped with the necessary tools, knowledge and skills to take up these challenges. It depends on you what you do with what you have been equipped with. The Department will be judged by your success and conduct in the field.
The medical profession is a calling, a vocation and not just a job. It is a profession that puts to the test your individual values of respect, dignity, care, passion and compassion, that you are expected to uphold at all times in your careers. You owe it to yourselves, communities and your country to serve with diligence and tenacity.
I call upon you to join forces with the department in the quest to improve delivery of our healthcare services and access to quality healthcare to all the South African population as mandated by the constitution of the country. The challenges in our healthcare system and in fact, health systems world wide are significant. The need for more doctors and other health professionals cannot be over emphasised. Our success in realising this mandate, however, depends largely on your support.
The department is concerned with the current labour unrests within our public health sector that are a result of challenges confronting the system. We are taking this issue very seriously and engaging all relevant stakeholders to come up with long term and comprehensive solutions. I am however appealing to you not to compromise the rights of the patients to healthcare in any way in your working lives and to respect processes that are in place to address challenges.
A number of institutionalised interventions that include infrastructure and service improvement programmes have been implemented across the country as part of addressing the challenges of the public health sector.
These and many other efforts are aimed at improving working conditions of our health professionals. Focus continues to be given to increasing the production of doctors and other health professional categories to address issues of capacity and to minimise maldistribution. There are no easy and immediate solutions to staff shortages. We need to work tirelessly together to beef up mechanisms that are in place to retain critical skills that are required to sustain the growth and development of the health sector if we are to improve the quality of healthcare of citizens of the country.
The development of the occupation specific remuneration and career progression dispensation for health professionals should be seen in the context of the transformation and ongoing intention to improve human resources for health. It is a strategy that is aimed not only at improving salaries as this has been found to be only a temporary solution but occupation specific dispensation (OSD) focuses on a range of other issues such as proper career paths within each profession, role of performance assessment, pay progression, implementation of human resourece-related policies across the provinces and dual career paths for professionals.
Our collaboration with the Republic of Cuba through the Ministry of Public Health is amongst the initiatives and bilateral agreements entered into to boost provisioning of health human resources in our democratic State and particularly in the rural and under served communities. We are indebted to our Cuban counterparts for remaining truthful and committed to the cooperation agreement signed way back in 1996 to contribute to the Ministry’s efforts to address workforce challenges.
To this end and through this health cooperation agreement, two hundred and twelve medical doctors including the sixty-three that are graduating today have been injected into the pool of doctors working in our health system. These doctors are at different level of employment and serving various communities in the public sector.
Your generosity as a country in extending your support and availing your health professionals, is not only limited to South Africa but to many other countries abroad including Latin America and the greater African region with the largest contingent of Cuban doctors serving in the rural and underserved areas of those countries.
You have restored hope in these countries whose human resources have been depleted by various factors such as migration, the scourge of HIV and AIDS and poverty.
We will continue to learn from your successful approaches and models to develop, increase and retain our human resources in order to manage realities in the employment sector as a result of natural attrition caused by; retirement, death and emigration. We are, again very thankful for your offer to increase the number of annual scholarships allocated to the country, from 60 to 80 per year.
We will fully utilise this opportunity that came at the right time when provinces are busy with the recruitment and selection of new recruits to study medicine in Cuba. Please extend our gratitude to the Republic of Cuba and the Ministry of Public Health back home.
The department is humbled by the overwhelming support and continued enthusiasm that has so far been displayed by our medical schools to accommodate and integrate our South African Cuban doctors in the healthcare system. This is despite a myriad of challenges that come with the entire process.
We realise that your commitment is based on the understanding and appreciation of the efforts of Government to increase human capacity for the country. Thank you very much. We would continue to nurture this partnership in all means possible to grow from strength to strength.
To our South African Mission in Cuba, we are truly grateful to His Excellency, Ambassador Pitso for the sterling work that the Embassy has been doing without additional resources to compensate for the increased workload. Your oversight role in the management of this programme in Cuba on behalf of the Department of Health, including the challenges that we would not want to specify on this occasion is a practical demonstration of inter-departmental partnership. We will make special time for bilateral discussions to talk about these challenges and means to deal with them.
Our appreciations also go to the parents and or guardians, provincial Heads of Health and MECs for all sacrifices made to ensure the success of these graduates. Thank you for willingness to part with your children and allow them to study miles away from home and for allowing us to deploy them in communities where they are most needed – even if it may be far away from home.
We thank the provincial leaders for working jointly to identify communities without services of this nature, recruit potential students, support and nurture them emotionally and financially throughout their years of training. It’s a daunting task that requires full and ongoing commitment. Thank you very much.
I want to thank the Vice Chancellor of the University of Limpopo, Professor Mokgalong, the management and the organising team from Medunsa campus for their willingness and readiness to always open doors for us to assist whenever we call for assistance. Please continue with your spirit of ubuntu.
Ke a leboga
Issued by: Department of Health
3 July 2009
