Published: 02/05/2024

From the President’s desk [Prof Tasleem Ras]

It’s been a very busy time for the SA Academy of Family Physicians. This being my first quarterly President’s Report, there are few pertinent issues that I’d like to focus on.

Our previous President, Prof Andrew Ross, a stalwart of the national family medicine community and longtime UKZN academic, stepped away from his role in the SAAFP Executive due to an ongoing health challenge. Andrew is a quiet and passionate leader, who seems to be tireless in the pursuit of restorative justice and social harmony. Testimony to this commitment was him being awarded the Order of Baobab by the President of the Republic of South Africa in 2015 for his valuable contribution to the development of rural youth. We pray for the best possible outcome as Andrew embarks on the next phase of his therapeutic journey, and hope that his wise counsel will guide the Academy for many years to come.

The annual national Family Physicians’ conference, one of the Academy’s flag-bearing events, was successfully held at the iconic Cape Town Waterfront in September. While the weather was cold outside, the pre-conference workshops focusing on ultrasound and research training, and the richly diverse programme schedule ensured that participants who attended were never left wishing they were elsewhere. Particularly encouraging was the active participation of registrars from across the country, and in a first for this conference, two UCT registrars, Carlota Sekhokoane and Chrystal Johnson, co-hosted a splendid gala dinner. Some key reflections coming from the conference included ensuring financial sustainability of future conferences, possibly expanding the scope of the conference to include other members of primary health care teams, and ongoing engagement with key decision-makers as part of the Academy’s advocacy. These lessons are going to be extremely pertinent as we start the planning process for hosting the World WONCA conference in Cape Town in 2027!

The Academy has long engaged with advocacy, which has focused on ensuring that Family Physicians are recognised within the systems in which they work, both public and private. The growing private practitioners’ forum has made significant inroads in their deliberations with healthcare funders in ensuring that Family Physicians are appropriately remunerated as specialists. Additionally, they will provide mentoring to emerging FPs who are planning to enter private practice. Within the public sector, members of the Academy have engaged with the national and provincial departments of health, contributing to conversations around health system strengthening and human resources for health.

Ensuring the financial sustainability of the Academy will be a priority of my tenure, as it has been a priority of my predecessors. This organisation is too important as the official voice of FPs in SA and globally to succumb to the financial woes that currently beset our economy. A simple way to mitigate this risk is to enhance our paid-up membership. If half the registered FPs on the HPCSA register were full members, our financial sustainability would be guaranteed. This is an objective that could be met but will need our collective efforts to convince colleagues and friends to register and pay their membership fees. Which leads me to my final point, the value that the Academy offers to its members.

While the Academy has been offering a number of resources to its membership for quite some time now, it is important for us to self-reflect and ask whether these offerings indeed add value to the professional lives of our members. A recent national membership survey had such a poor response rate that the results cannot be meaningfully interpreted, except to question the reasons for the low levels of engagement. This is definitely an area that needs more robust exploration.

Our successes in the last quarter, despite some serious organisational and personal challenges, indicates that the SAAFP is robust and resilient in its ability to respond to these challenges. I know that the Executive can count on the support of all members as we chart our way into 2025, and beyond.