LIMPOPO HEALTH MEC DR PHOPHI RAMATHUBA WELCOMES 170
PERMANENT AND 1123 INTERNS AND COMMUNITY SERVICE HEALTHCARE
PROFESSIONALS
Limpopo Health MEC Dr Phophi Ramathuba has welcomed 170 permanently employed
clinicians including amongst others five Specialists grade one mainly in rural hospitals, 162
Medical officers grade 1 and 3, Clinical Psychologists, 32 Radiographers, 32 Physiotherapists, 26
Speech and Audiologists and others. This is a second batch following the previous recruitment
182 Medical Officers grade 1 amongst others, in October 2022. These clinicians are expected to
start this week following a completion of their recruitment processes.
It must also be noted that this recruitment process is the culmination of several months of
planning, taking into account the budget to fund posts, determination of number of posts that
could be funded from the budget available across the various categories of health professionals,
and allocation of posts per facility until the approval by Treasury.
It has been three years since the department has last appointed clinicians on a permanent basis.
Since the focus was on Covid 19, all new appointments were done on 6 months of COVID-19
contract posts. The third batch of permanent appointments is expected before the end of the
financial year, which includes professional nurses who will resume their duties in February 2023.
The MEC continues to fulfil our contractual obligations by appointing 1123 clinicians that is
made of 336 medical and pharmacist interns and 791 community service personnel.
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MEC could not hide her excitement in welcoming them. “We are excited by this development
since it took us more than three years of engagement with Treasury. We were able to free
resources by restructuring of senior administration posts which we can do without in head office
and district offices and redirected the resources to the appointment of clinicians on a permanent
base. This will assist a lot in stabilizing the department, especially because there were
uncertainties from our clinicians who were not sure of what will happen when their Covid 19 or
community service contracts lapsed. It will also reduce the current shortages, which often result
in burnout on the existing staff wherein some medical negligence becomes the results thereof,”
said MEC Ramathuba.
MEC Ramathuba has also implored the newly appointed staff to prioritize treating people with
respect all the time. “We congratulate all the newly appointed staff and commit our support
towards them. On the same breath, we want to appeal to them to understand that the sector they
have studied for has no room for a second chance. The mistake we commit in health are
irreversible since the result is death. Therefore, whatever we do, let’s try to give our utmost best.
The people we will treat in our public facilities have no other option except us, otherwise many of
them will not be in our facilities to seek health. State of art infrastructure is what I will strive to
provide, however state of the art attitude is what I wish, pray, and ask from each one of you.
Passion must be your daily driver,” concluded MEC Ramathuba
