Acute Shortage Of Surgeons In East Cape

Surgical services in the Eastern Cape is heading for a collapse if the shortage of general surgeons continued, Dispatch Online quoted on Tuesday.
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It reported Dr Sats Pillay, chairman of the Association of Surgeons in SA (ASSA) as saying: "I have nobody to train as surgeons."

Pillay, who is chief of surgery, Port Elizabeth's Living stone Hospital, remarked that ASSA had raised the issue with SA Medical Association and the Health department. Only six out of 28 doctors in Livingstone hospital, wanted to specialize in general surgery.

Of the 30 junior doctors in Frere Hospital, only 10 wanted to specialize in general surgery. At the Mthatha’s Nelson Mandela Hospital it was worse, with only six, of 30 junior doctors, desiring to become general surgeons.

If this trend continues there might be no general surgeons in South Africa in the future.