Health: Cuban-trained doctors must be ‘change agents’ – Phaahla

With the aim of ‘restoring’ the values and ethics traditionally associated with the medical profession worldwide, Cuban-trained South African doctors were urged on Friday to ‘uphold the principles’ underpinning the Hippocratic oath throughout their careers, reports Pam Saxby for Legalbrief Policy Watch. Health Deputy Minister Joe Phaahla made this appeal during an address at Walter Sisulu University in Mthatha, when he also emphasised the fundamental importance of providing quality health care. ‘SA needs medical doctors … (with) a passion for medicine, who have a commitment to serve their communities, (and) who understand the challenges of a developmental state,’ the Deputy Minister said. The new graduates are ‘expected’ to serve the rural and peri-urban communities in which they grew up, according to a media statement on the training programme concerned.

Noting the ‘attitude’ and ‘morale’ ‘challenges’ often encountered among SA’s public health professionals – and given that the Cuban healthcare system is deeply rooted in community values – Phaahla called on all doctors trained in that country to ‘partner with the Department of Health and be agents of change’. In that regard, he referred to efforts apparently under way to ‘revitalise’ primary health care in SA, which – at least in the Deputy Minister’s view – ‘goes to the heart of ensuring an improvement in the quality of health services’. According to Phaahla, with so many doctors leaving the public health sector, SA has much to learn from Cuba’s successful approach to healthcare and the model used to train its doctors.

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