Courts rule in favour of
South African doctors trained abroad
Groundup – 18Feb 2022
Doctors won’t have to spend a year training before
sitting exams
Two court
rulings have made it easier for South African doctors and dentists who trained
overseas and want to practice here. Illustration: Lisa Nelson
- Two recent court rulings
have found in favour of South African-born doctors and dentists trained
overseas who now want to practice in the country.
- The cases challenged a new
policy which required foreign-trained South African doctors to undertake a
year of local clinical training before they are allowed to sit for their
pre-internship clinical examinations.
- More than 100 of these
doctors have since been allowed to take these exams.
South
African doctors trained abroad will now be allowed to sit local entry exams
without needing to complete a conversion year of clinical training.![]()
This
follows two separate court hearings where the Health Professionals Council of
South Africa (HPCSA) and the Medical and Dental Professionals Board were told
to enrol over 100 doctors in both clinical and theoretical examinations.
In June
2021, Judge Margaret Victor in the Johannesburg High Court set aside the HPCSA’s policy governing the
requirements for foreign-trained South African doctors or dentists wanting to
practice in South Africa.
The case
was brought by Dr Hoosain Vawda, a South African who completed his Bachelor of
Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS) at Anna Medical College in Mauritius.
During his studies, Vawda received extensive clinical training. In March 2020
Vawda applied to complete his practical medical examination — the Objective
Structured Clinical Examination — but was denied by the Mental and Dental Professionals
Board, in terms of its new policy.
The
policy, called the Pathway for Registration of
South African Citizens Who Hold Qualifications Not Prescribed for Registration
to Be Registered as Medical Practitioners, or the new Pathway
policy, came into effect in June 2020. It required foreign trained doctors to
undertake a year of local clinical training before they are allowed to sit for
their pre-internship clinical examinations. The HPCSA regulates the education,
training and registration for health professionals under the Health Professions
Act. There are twelve professional bodies under the HPCSA, including the Mental
and Dental Professionals Board.
In
setting the policy aside, Judge Victor harshly criticised the policy. “At the
time the decision was taken [to implement the new policy] no South African
university had any programmes in place to provide clinical exposure to foreign
trained medical students … Universities can’t be expected to improvise a
programme of clinical training without proper planning.”
Despite
this ruling, the HPCSA still did not enrol many foreign-trained doctors in
these final professional examinations, including a group of about 100
foreign-educated doctors who are all South African citizens that studied in
countries such as Romania, China, Mauritius, Malaysia and Ukraine. They
returned to South Africa after completing their degrees with the hope of
practising medicine.
In August
2021, these recently qualified doctors, under the banner of the South African
Internationally Trained Health Professionals Association (SAITHPA), submitted
an application in the Pretoria High Court to compel the HPCSA to enrol them in
the clinical examinations. This action was partly successful, with about 30
doctors enrolled for exams in September.
On 5
November, the doctors who were not enrolled returned to court, asking for a
contempt order against the Medical and Dental Professionals Board and HPCSA,
for failing to comply with the court order. This application was unopposed and
on 9 November the contempt order was granted. Later that month, the remaining
70 foreign-trained doctors were granted access to the December-round of
examinations.
Rene
Govender, chairperson of the South African Internationally Trained Health
Professionals Association’s legal desk, said, “So far we have maintained an 80%
pass rate. We will continue to fight for the rights of our young doctors who
were trained abroad to be allowed to practice on their home soil. It’s not easy
for parents to spend millions on sending their children to study abroad only to
have them sit at home when they return.”
Dr
Geremie Nayager from Phoenix, Durban was one of the applicants in the second
application. He completed his seven-year Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of
Surgery at Anhui Medical University in China in 2019. He also completed
electives in internal medicine and surgery in Kerala, India. On his return to
South Africa, he worked with the Gift of the Givers and helped run their Durban
Covid centre.
“I had
not planned to study abroad, it was a last minute decision that I made to
follow my dream,” Nayager told GroundUp.
“My
application process with the HPCSA received no response for months, not even a
reference number. Administration delay was then blamed on the pandemic. Months
later I was informed that I’m not eligible for the board exam as the board had
to review my university’s curriculum. What HPCSA was telling me meant my years
of study had gone for nothing.”
Nayager
passed his theory exams with flying colours. After the August court victory, he
was invited to write his practical exam which he also passed. He will begin an
internship at Prince Mshiyeni Memorial Hospital in Umlazi, eThekwini on 1
January 2022.
The
HPCSA’s head of corporate affairs Christopher Tsatsawane said that the Medical
and Dental Profesionals Board and the HPCSA had accepted the Vawda ruling.
“Candidates seeking to write examinations will be handled as was the case
previously. If their submissions are compliant, they will be invited to sit
initially for theory exams, and on passing, practical exams before they can be
registered as interns.”
Tsatsawane
said the number of applications chosen to write the clinical examinations will
be determined by the “number that the university managing these exams is able
to accommodate”.
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