Political parties urge government to hire medical graduates to save HIV/AIDS programmes

Opposition parties say the government should do more to hire unemployed medical graduates to improve health care services and ensure there’s no slide in HIV/AIDS testing.

This, as the National Assembly on Tuesday debated a special appropriation bill to plug the gap in funding for HIV/AIDS testing and treatment, after United States President Donald Trump froze funding under its President’s Emergency Plan for aids relief known as PEPFAR, almost a year ago.

Parties said that this has been a wake-up call for government not to rely on foreign support for the provision of essential services.

Under powers accorded to the finance minister under the Public Finance Management Act, an additional R754-million has already been allocated to the health department to ensure its HIV/AIDS and TB testing programmes don’t collapse.

Scores of South African health care workers have lost their jobs, and testing centres have closed as a result of the US funding freeze.

The EFF's Khosi Mkhonto said the need for the special allocation to plug the gap has been self-inflictedand is a result of decades of poor planning and austerity measures.

"We should never again place the health of our people in the hands of imperialists."

Meanwhile, ActionSA’s Alan Beesley said that government must confront its own systemic and governance failures in the healthcare sector.

"ActionSA has continuously maintained that South Africa does not suffer from a lack of resources but rather from pervasive corruption, greed, and waste."

Only the MK Party objected to the bill, saying it won’t speed up the implementation of the National Health Insurance.

The billwill now be sent to the National Council of Provinces for concurrence.