The Northern Cape Department of Health hosted a Welcoming Ceremony of 236 Medical Interns and Community Service Professionals at Horseshoe Motel in Kimberley. The welcome ceremony was graced by the presence of the Provincial Health MEC, Mr Maruping Lekwene and Senior management of the Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe hospital.
This event is as a result of the province receiving health care professionals to do their academic medical practice in different field. This process of allocating all eligible medical interns and community service graduates was successfully completed by National Department of Health for this year’s annual intake and placement, as part of the last phase of your academic programme.
These includes:
- 26 Medical interns
- 23 Occupational Therapy community service
- 27 Physiotherapy community service
- 15 Diagnostic Radiography community service
- 29 Pharmacists community service
- 13 Dentists community service
- 13 Dietetics community service
- 13 Enviromental Health Practitioners
- 9 Speech Therapy community service
- 3 Audiology community service
- 65 Medical community service
The Internship and Community Service Programme (ICSP online) is an electronic platform that is administered by the National Department of Health to manage the internship and Community Services Programme for the entire country with the aim of ensuring that the application and allocation of posts is fair and equitable. The purpose of an internship programme is to allow interns to convert previously acquired theoretical knowledge into activities related to professional practice and to apply newly acquired practical knowledge and skills under the supervision of senior health professionals. The Internship Programme duration is for a period of two years.
The Community Service Programme in the health sector was introduced as an important intervention to ensure the availability of human resources in underserviced areas of provinces and also to provide an enabling environment for new professionals to acquire experience. In terms of the Community Service Programme, health professionals are legally required to complete a year of community service before they can be registered for independent practice. The Department extends a special gratitude to ProfKon for sponsoring the entire event, with the support of the Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe hospital management team.
