1. I am pleased to inform honourable member that the Department developed and published (in February 2021), a 2030 Human Resources for Health Strategy that serves as a guideline of the Human Resources Agenda for the Public Health sector at various levels of care.
2. The modelling undertaken in the development of the 2030 HRH Strategy, indicates a current shortfall of skilled health professionals in South Africa hence the strategy makes a call for investing in the health workforce to address human resources deficits and inequalities across provinces and between private and public health sectors. However, its implementation has been a challenge due to stringent budgets.
3. To date, with the acknowledgement of the available limited resources in the public service generally, the Department has managed to close the vacancy-rate gap for healthcare related posts to 12.4% and administration positions to 11.80%, respectively, as at the 30 September 2022, across all provinces.
4. The Department further managed to allocate guaranteed funding/budget for the statutory positions of medical internship and community service personnel through the equitable-share and the Human Resources Training Grant (HRTG).
5. Further to the above developments, to address shortages and to ensure the provision of optimal healthcare services, Provincial Departments of Health are implementing plans that amongst others include:
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