Foreign doctors can’t register

Frustrated, helpless and dejected – that’s how foreign-trained doctors desperate to register with the Health Professions Council of SA (HPCSA) and help stem the Covid-19 coronavirus epidemic say they feel as they watch the health system and its workers struggle to cope with the mounting cases.

But their plight isn’t a new one. Foreign-trained doctors who spoke to City Press this week say they’ve long decried the arduous process of registration with the medical profession regulator.

It’s taken one doctor almost two years to have her application processed and, even now, she’s still a long way from legally and fully practising in local hospitals.

Numerous reports have previously detailed not only