A group of medical graduates find themselves among the growing list of unemployed graduates in South Africa after having spent 6 years of schooling and training in Russia.
In 2016, a number of students wishing to pursue a career in medicine were granted the opportunity to study abroad at the Astrakhan State Medical University in Russia, on a government funded scholarship.
Six years later, some returned home jobless while others are left stranded in Russia and are facing expulsion from the institution as well as being evicted from their student residences, due to the allegations of unpaid stipends and tuition fees.
According to the department, before the medical graduates can secure work placement in South Africa, they have to pass a two-part board exam, which is administered through the Health Professions Council of SA (HPCSA).
Medical studies graduate from the Free State, Katlego Ditsoane explains that when the programme started in 2016, they were unaware of the board exams and were not informed that they would have to write the examinations once they returned to SA.
Ditsoane says that they were told that they would follow the same integration programme the Cuban foreign graduates did and were promised that they would be working in no time.
Whilst abroad the medical students also experienced numerous challenges during their studies and when the Covid- 19 pandemic hit, the difficulties escalated.
“When Covid hit it was a really difficult time, being far from home and not knowing what tomorrow has in store for us.”
Ditsoane voiced that the pandemic impacted a lot of the disciplines and learning criteria they had to complete, and with medicine being a very practical profession they didn’t get a lot of clinical practise training as a result of classes being conducted online.
“When classes moved online, it become a theory-based profession and now we lack the clinical skills.”
He says that despite having a medical degree and all the theory knowledge the employment prospects are still very bleak and adds that government is not willing to help them find a suitable programme that could strengthen their clinical skills.
