Hon Deputy Speaker, there are many initiatives that we have employed for the retention of health professionals. One of them is to strengthen the professionalisation of clinical services so that the doctors and nurses do not opt for management careers to deal with the issue of income progression. In this regard, we have introduced the occupation-specific dispensation, OSD, with quite successful results and we are busy revising and reviewing this intervention.
The second issue is that we have also introduced community service for doctors and we are extending this to other professionals as well.
Lastly, I want to say that there are bursaries available for the training of doctors in the Cuban training programme as well as for others in the South African medical schools in those specific provinces, so that the graduates commit themselves to go and service the needy and remote areas in those particular provinces.
Those are some of the initiatives that have been employed to retain these health professionals. I thank you.