Welcome to South African Medical Association

Dr Vusumuzi Nhlapho, SAMA CEO

Dr Vusumuzi Nhlapho, SAMA CEO

Thank you for visiting the website of the South African Medical Association (SAMA). This site provides a wealth of information to medical doctors; its purpose is to offer relevant information to medical professionals to enhance their professional lives.

greetings to the newly elected Branch Chairpersons. SAMA is pleased with the work that you continue to commit to the association. Greetings to our new Chairs of Chairpersons Forum – Dr Mark Human who comes in with the tremendous experience as well as our deputy Chairperson – Dr Dan Sithole who will offer all the support to make this forum a success.

SAMA is in the last cycle of the Committee meeting and is pushing for the achievement of our objectives for the remainder of the year. Our committees are doing an important function in representing the interests of members from all sectors of the medical profession and the committees allow SAMA to drive and influence policy decisions with key stakeholders. I am thankful for the work done by the chairs and office bearers of the committees.

Resultingly, we have extended the member-driven elections process because we recognise the importance of member-driven committee structures. The new deadline for the nominations is now 21 November 2022. SAMA members can either nominate themselves or nominate another SAMA member. We are appealing specially to the junior doctors (JUDASA, SARA Committees) to be participate in this process since this platform offers great opportunities for professional growth.

Last month I reported on the work SAMA is doing on the Medico-Legal matter using webinars. The last webinar gave us optics on the issues that we need to pursue such as pushing for mediation solutions. This is progress in the right direction and your participation in these endeavours is needed.

We are in the phase of interns and community services doctor placement and once more this continues to be a struggle with the Department of Health. Whilst the system has commenced early, there are still glitches when it comes to swapping facilities for interns and community service placements. It pains me to witness reports that some interns are willing to pay up to 70% of their salaries to swap places for internship placements. These are not the type of medical professionals we want in our system and their behaviour points to a need to instil values of quality care from first year in medical school.

Whilst progress is made for local students, sadly there are no immediate plans made for foreign doctors trained in South Africa. These doctors are unable to practice anywhere until they complete their internship in this country. Additionally, SAMA has been raised the matter of South African graduates from Russia who were funded by the Mpumalanga Province. These graduates are in limbo as they are battling with HPCSA payments to enable their registration in SA. These students are future doctors who are caught up in the system and it is important to get them into medical practice as soon as possible.

Our public hospitals are in a state of disaster, with only 72 out of more than 400 hospitals that are exempted from loadshedding. Some areas are experiencing watershedding as a result of loadshedding as water reservoirs are unable to pump water to residents and healthcare facilities without power. This affects many healthcare facilities, with reports such as from Helen Joseph, a tertiary level 3 hospital where healthcare professionals were reporting water-borne diseases due to the poor sanitation in the facility.

Our work with our stakeholders sees SAMA hosting three webinars and one roundtable. SAMA is collaborating with the Eastern Cape Medics on the 18 November; with SAPHRA on the 22 November and with SAMRC on 1 December. We are also partnering with MPS on the roundtable on the 23 November.

We are happy that most branches are gearing up for the final year students’ graduation ceremony season. SAMA Head Office supports these events since the recruitment of graduates into SAMA is crucial to the future of the association.

The last issue I want to note pertains to the Cape Western Branch matter. SAMA is in mediation with the branch. Further communication on this issue will be sent in due course.

I would like to ask for the second wind, to push just a little bit more as the end of the year is near and I believe that we cannot afford to slack till we reach the end. In doing all this, we will look back at 2022 as being one of the most productive years for SAMA.