Unions are questioning how government can plan doctor staffing without a national register tracking unemployed medical practitioners after community service.
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The National Department of Health’s admission that it does not keep a register of unemployed doctors has drawn concern from unions, with critics questioning how the government can plan staffing and budgets without knowing how many qualified practitioners are available.
The department previously confirmed that 1 891 doctors completed compulsory community service by the end of 2025 and were eligible for employment, but said it could not determine how many remained unemployed.
“The department and the Minister have reported on numerous occasions, including responses to parliamentary questions, that there is no register or record of unemployed healthcare professionals kept by the department,” spokesperson Foster Mohale said.
At the end of March 2026, provincial Health departments had 1 518 vacant medical posts nationally.
Health and Other Services Personnel Trade Union of South Africa(HOSPERSA) Gauteng provincial secretary Nhlanhla Mthize said the government should be able to track what happens to doctors after they complete community service, including whether they find work and how long those who remain unemployed have been searching.
“Knowing how many doctors are unemployed, where they are, what skills they possess, and how long they have been seeking employment is basic workforce intelligence,” Mthize said.
HOSPERSA has called for an urgent national reconciliation of doctors who completed community service in 2025, linked to their employment outcomes.
“The question is: How can government credibly plan the country’s healthcare workforce if it does not know how many qualified doctors are available to work?” Mthize said.
The Public Servants Association (PSA) also questioned how the department could budget and allocate resources without an accurate picture of unemployed doctors.
PSA national manager Claude Naicker said: “It is a bit concerning because how does the department then plan to budget and make provision to employ these graduates and allocate resources to those institutions that are under-resourced?”
Naicker said the PSA had supplied the department with information received from unemployed doctors, although the union had not independently verified it. The PSA does not have its own estimate and relies on information received from doctors.
He said both national and provincial health departments should maintain updated databases recording how many doctors were available for employment, how many had been placed and the specialties in which they had qualified.
SAMATU has also previously supplied information on unemployed doctors to the national department.
Speaking on SAFM recently, SAMATU deputy president Dr Mthanjiswa Bengeza said the union had provided the Department of Health with its database of unemployed doctors in both 2024 and 2025, adding that he was not certain whether the department had retained the information.
A 27-year-old doctor, who completed community service in KwaZulu-Natal in December 2025, said she had never been asked by a national or provincial health official to submit her details for the purpose of tracking unemployed doctors.
She said the department’s admission made her feel that unemployed doctors were not valued.
She has applied for government medical officer posts, research medical officer positions and jobs at the National Health Laboratory Service without receiving an interview or feedback. She relies on locum work when it is available.
She said the government should already know doctor unemployment was a significant problem, even without an exact figure.
“There have been multiple meetings with unions, strikes by doctors. So they do know that it's not a small amount.”
She supported a central database but said doctors’ personal information would need to be protected.
She said someone claiming to be from a health department head office had offered her a job in exchange for money. She reported the incident after realising it was a scam.
“This shows that many people do take advantage of the unemployment,” she said, adding that scammers had also entered groups used by doctors looking for work.
“It would help a lot,” she said of a national database. “But the information that they have needs to also be protected.”
The department previously said provincial health departments continued to advertise and recruit medical officers against available funded vacancies.
By the end of May, the government’s Personnel and Salary System (PERSAL) system had recorded 1 655 appointments to Medical Officer Grade 1 posts, including permanent and sessional appointments. Of these, 664 were doctors who had completed community service in 2025.
The figures do not establish that the remaining doctors are unemployed. Some may be working in private practice, doing locum work, working abroad or employed elsewhere.
Naicker said the department should engage educational institutions, graduates, and other stakeholders to establish how many doctors were entering the workforce and improve planning for their employment.
HOSPERSA also warned against relying on successive groups of interns and community-service doctors instead of filling permanent posts.
“Community service should not become a revolving door through which another replaces one cohort simply because these doctors are less costly than permanently employed medical practitioners,” Mthize said.
