JOHANNESBURG, 31 August 2009 (IRIN) - As much as 10 percent of South Africa's doctors might have left the country in 2008 to work in developed countries, said local media reports.

However, Bertha Peters-Scheepers, spokesperson for the Health Professionals Council of SA (HPCSA), a statutory body established in terms of the 1974 Health Professions Act to protect consumers of health care services, said using the organization's certificate of good standing to determine the level emigration by doctors was not necessarily an accurate measure.

Local media reports have used the certificate "as a reflection of doctors leaving the country", Peters-Scheepers told IRIN, but the certificate was also requested by local employers to establish whether applicants for jobs were qualified or had malpractice judgments against them.

World Health Organization guidelines frown upon developed countries recruiting doctors from developing countries, but adverts in local medical journals offering doctors work in developed countries are commonplace.

A report by The Times, a South African daily newspaper, notes that in the "July [2009] edition of The South African Medical Journal there were 10 job advertisements for doctors — nine of them for positions in Australia, the UK or Canada."

According to the HPCSA, South Africa has about 35,000 registered doctors; 3,550 applied for certificates of good standing in 2008.

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