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There are 54 South African students, all studying medicine or dentistry, who have appealed to the DHET, HPCSA and the SA Council of Medical Deans to be integrated into SA universities so they may complete their degrees with as little disruption as possible. They are relatively evenly spread across all years of study, with some actually due to sit their final exams this June.

Friday marks 100 days since the outbreak of war in Ukraine, a grim milestone that brings fresh anxiety to the group of 54 South African medical students who had to flee their Ukrainian universities in February.  The students are still waiting for decision-makers to respond to their request to be integrated in South African institutions in order to complete their studies.

“We got ourselves organised even as we were leaving Ukraine,” says Zoh Mvuyane, a fifth-year student at Dnipro Medical Institute.  “Our journeys out of the country were treacherous and traumatic, and we found it useful to share information and resources on mobile networks, even though we were all studying in different cities and universities.  Then, we carried on talking to each other, putting forward representatives to approach South African medical schools and the DHET [Department of Higher Education and Training].”

The students proactively opened up channels of communication with Universities South Africa (USAF), university vice-chancellors and health sciences deans, the Health Professions Council of SA (HPCSA), and the departments of higher education and health.  These first conversations took place in early March, with students convening meetings of all stakeholders and urging them to find a way for them to continue their studies in South African institutions.

“We were very encouraged by the initial responses we received from senior academics and university administrators.  We developed a model, in conjunction with respected medical school professors, that would provide a pathway for all the different students, based on which year of study they are in,” comments Luphumlo Ntengu, a sixth-year student registered at Vinnytsia National Medical University.

“We are grateful to have reached the ears of all the appropriate decision-makers and we found their initially positive responses to our plight very encouraging.”

The students know that medical school places are limited and that there are issues around matching up the curriculae of their Ukrainian institutions with South African universities.  However, they are keen to stress that these should not be insurmountable obstacles if the universities in both countries work co-operatively, along with their respective governments and the HPCSA, which will need to accredit and register these new doctors when they graduate. 

The integration model that the students put forward would mean that South African institutions would only be obliged to accept a small handful of individual students each, divided up among the different years of study. 

The students are increasingly anxious about their academic prospects. The DHET agreed to establish a task team at the end of March, comprising all stakeholders, but everything seems to have slowed down. Although they met in the last week of May, the students have not received minutes of that meeting.  Furthermore, a letter sent on 25 May to DHET Director-General, Dr Nkosinathi Sishi, asking for feedback within seven days has also gone unanswered.

What is causing consternation is the ticking clock. The academic year in Europe ends in June and it will soon be too late to apply for transfer into medical schools in safe European countries. Also, the costs of tuition and living in most European countries are prohibitively high – Ukraine was an attractive prospect because it was relatively affordable.

“We have asked to be integrated into South African universities because we cannot return to Ukraine and our options to continue studying abroad are limited.  We are all self-funded students and many of us come from working class families; we do not have the resources to start our degrees again and we are desperately keen to qualify and start contributing to our South African communities as doctors,” says Mvuyane.

In the meantime, these resilient, focused students have not been idle. They have all kept themselves busy attending online classes offered by Ukrainian academics, many of whom are now teaching from exile out of the country.  While helpful, these classes cannot offer the first-hand, practical teaching so necessary for medical studies.  For those students eligible for elective blocks in teaching hospitals, many have arranged work in South African hospitals over the last three months. They are determined to keep learning and not to sit still.

All 54 students co-signed a letter to the DHET on 25 May asking for a progress report and an update within seven days. None has been received to date.