Up to 10 operations a day are cancelled in Western Cape public hospitals because of a rigid affirmative-action policy that prevents white and Indian doctors from filling vacant senior posts.
The Sunday Times reported that specialists are waiting for up to two years to have their appointments finalised while the provincial Cabinet stalls on their posts, waiting for black candidates to fill them instead.
The equity policy that gives preference to black candidates has been labelled ‘playing racial politics with patients’ lives’, the newspaper said.
Last month, the heads of the various surgical departments at Tygerberg Hospital were notified that operation lists would be cut indefinitely because of a shortage of anaesthetists
Groote Schuur’s head of surgery, Professor Del Kahn, said the equity requirements were having the most impact on the choice of registrars, who are specialists in training. "We have been obliged to take equity candidates who do not meet our minimum requirements, and Indian doctors are being discriminated against in this province," he said.
He said the filling of two top posts at the hospital in the past six months had taken more than two years to finalise because the candidates had been white.
However, the head of cardiology at Groote Schuur, Prof Bongani Mayosi, said he had successfully motivated for three senior posts to be filled by white male specialists, while training black specialists for the future.
