There are more than 12 times the number of applicants seeking to train as doctors as there are positions available at South Africa's medical schools, the Democratic Alliance said on Thursday.

This is among the reasons for the "astounding" skills shortage in the country's public health sector, DA health spokesperson Mike Waters told a media briefing at Parliament in Cape Town.

"There are 46 000 vacancies for nurses and 11 700 vacancies for doctors in public hospitals," he said.

Medical schools at universities around the country had 1 226 positions for students, while the number of applicants (in 2006) was 15 794.

"The capacity of medical schools has not increased significantly since the 1970s," Waters noted.

The solution was to involve the private sector, yet the health department deliberately limited the involvement of the private sector in training medical staff.

"Universities have reached their maximum; we need to explore other avenues."

There had been an application by a private institution to open up a medical school at Midrand in Gauteng two years ago, but this was rejected by government.

Waters said what was needed were public-private partnerships to establish training facilities, an approach that did "not place the entire financial burden on the state".

Contacted for comment, health department acting chief communications director, Fidel Radebe, said there were doctor training programmes underway at a number of institutions.

Asked if government, given the shortage of doctors, planned to enter into partnerships with the private sector to build more medical schools, he told Sapa he was "not aware of such moves".

There was, however, a "multiplication of training" at existing institutions.

Asked how many doctors were involved in this, he replied: "I don't have such figures at the moment."

On training for nurses, Waters said this had been severely constrained by a decision, in the 1990s, to close certain nursing colleges.

According to a discussion document tabled at the briefing, a total of 2629 registered nurses graduated from local colleges in 1996. Ten years later, the figure was 1493.

Sapa