Healthcare Worker Shortages

The shortage of healthcare workers in the public sector is a crisis in South Africa that requires an urgent response. Ensuring that clinics and hospitals can provide quality health services depends mainly on having enough qualified and committed staff in place — including doctors, nurses, pharmacists, pharmacy assistants, community healthcare workers, lay counsellors, peer-educators, and even security guards and cleaners.

However, instead of filling vacant posts and ensuring that there are enough people to properly deliver our healthcare, posts remain frozen in many areas. While many doctors and nurses remain unemployed, there are not enough open positions to employ them. The problem is only exacerbated for rural communities who struggle to attract specialists and senior doctors. These shortages lead to long waiting times, longer hospital stays, higher numbers of deaths, and increased pressure on the few staff in place. A gap remains between the staffing needed to ensure high quality services and the staff present each day at site level. TAC works with partner organisations to address this crisis through seeking adequate resourcing for health and optimal expenditure of finances.