In order to accommodate Cuban doctors in the Ermelo hospital in Mpumalanga, the South African
student doctors were kicked out of their residence.
The Health Provincial department’s decision to evict the South African intern doctors from their
accommodations has angered them, and they now have to rent  outside of the hospital grounds
using their own money. South African doctors they are left to fend for themselves in the periphery.

There was a long history of extremely questionable cooperation and relations between South Africa
and Cuba and now it is directly affecting our own South African trained doctors.

It is the state’s responsibility to place and accommodate all doctors, as per the Health Professions
Council of SA (HPCSA), in order for them to carry out their civil service duties without interference.
Internship is a statutory component of medical training that the state established for doctors to
complete their medical training.
It is disappointing that the department still employs Cuban doctors when local doctors are still
unemployed.