Cape Town - The Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA) has urged government to come up with a plan to retain doctors because the state has spent billions of rands subsidising their training.
South Africa produces 1 200 doctors every year but half of that figure leaves the country every five years, the organisation said on Wednesday.
The HPCSA is tasked with protecting the public by ensuring the production of competent health practitioners safe enough to practice their trade.
HPCSA acting Chief Executive Kgosi Letlape addressed a joint meeting of Parliament's Portfolio Committees on Higher Education and Health on Wednesday.
He suggested that if medical students were being trained for six years, they should work for the country for the same number of years.
Letlape said that at the moment it was "train and go" when it should rather be train for six years and stay for six years. "We have got a leaking bucket," he said.
He highlighted that improved working conditions and more funding for facilities such as laboratories could help in retaining and producing more doctors.
He said that increasing the number of medical student at universities should be backed up with supporting resources in order for the country to keep producing quality doctors.
Asked by lawmakers if the HPCSA was putting caps on the number of graduates which could be enrolled at universities, he said that this was not the case as the country needed more doctors.
Letlape said it was possible for universities to take up more students but it required a change of mindset among some of the heads of institution.
He underlined that internationally recommended lecturer-student ratio for medicine classes was one lecturer for every four students. The maximum was 12 students per one lecturer.
The committees planned to invite the Departments of Higher Education, and of Health, Deans of Universities and other stakeholders and see how universities could take up more medical students.
