This National Doctors’ Day, commemorated yesterday (16 November), South Africans are not only thanking doctors. They are also learning that some of the faces they see online are not doctors at all.
Previous reports confirm that a leading South African urologist, Professor Kgomotso Mathabe, likeness (face and voice) had been cloned and used in a deepfake scam to sell “male potency” products on social media. Patients who trusted her name handed over banking details, lost money, and flooded her hospital with calls for consultations and refunds.
Globally, investigations by outlets such as CBS News and the British Medical Journal have uncovered dozens of deepfake videos in which fabricated or impersonated doctors promote miracle treatments and weight loss products to millions of viewers. At the same time, TransUnion Africa reports that deepfake-linked fraud in South Africa has surged by about 1 200% in a single year, with banking and fintech hardest hit.
According to Immploy, a leading medical recruitment and staffing agency, these trends are a warning shot for the local health sector.
“Doctors in South Africa are facing a new kind of risk. Their identities can be copied in a few clicks, and patients can be misled by videos and profiles that look convincing on a mobile screen,” says Francois Vryburg, MD of Immploy. “On a day when we honour the profession, we also need to protect it. Compliance has to move from paperwork to frontline defence.”
A stressed system now faces digital impostors
South Africa already faces a severe doctor shortage, with only 0,8 doctors per 1 000 people and about 0,3 per 1 000 in the public sector, well below the World Health Organisation benchmark of 2,5 per 1 000 for middle and low-income countries.
The estimated shortfall is about 20 000 doctors nationwide, with rural provinces such as the Eastern Cape, Limpopo, Mpumalanga, and North West carrying the heaviest burden.
Despite local medical schools training roughly 2 000 new doctors each year, advocacy groups estimate that more than 1 800 qualified doctors who completed community service remain unemployed – and hundreds of new graduates struggle to secure internships.
On the other side, the public sector is bleeding experience. Persal data presented in Parliament shows that between 2013 and 2024, 12 745 doctors resigned from public healthcare facilities, an average of more than 1 000 per year.
Research by Professor Indiran Govender indicates that over 23 400 South African health professionals were living and working abroad in 2024, mainly in the UK, New Zealand, the US and Australia.
“The brain drain is not just a loss of talent. It is a loss of institutional memory, mentorship, and continuity of care. We are losing experienced doctors while failing to place young ones,” says Vryburg.
This structural shortage makes the health system particularly vulnerable to people who step into the gaps with false promises and fake identities.
From bogus practice to AI deepfakes
South Africa has long dealt with cases of bogus or unregistered practitioners, with the Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA) routinely issuing warnings and confirming arrests across several provinces. These cases typically involve individuals presenting themselves as doctors without any registration or using forged certificates to gain credibility.
Identity misuse, where real practitioners’ registration numbers and names are stolen and used to submit claims, mislead patients, or bypass employment checks, is also of concern.
“Until now, most medical impersonation cases have involved forged credentials and stolen practitioner numbers. Deepfakes take that to another level. A patient who sees a familiar face or hears a trusted voice in a video is far more likely to believe the message. That is where the risk to public trust becomes very real,” adds Vryburg.
Verification cannot be treated as routine administration. It is now a frontline safeguard for patient safety and institutional trust. The HPCSA’s public register remains the most authoritative first step.
Still, employers, hospitals, and staffing providers increasingly need layered compliance protocols that include real-time registration checks, biometric or liveness testing during remote onboarding, direct confirmation of qualifications with training institutions, and stronger data-protection practices.
How Immploy is changing its own compliance playbook
In response, Immploy has overhauled its compliance protocols, treating identity and credential verification as critical infrastructure.
Every placement now includes real-time HPCSA verification for every doctor and allied professional, biometric and liveness checks to counter AI-generated video or image forgeries, direct verification of qualifications with universities and training institutions, and strengthened data protection and audit trails aligned with the Protection of Personal Information Act.
“These are layered checks. We do not rely on a single database or form. We combine registry checks, biometrics, and direct institutional confirmation so that a forged document or synthetic video cannot slip through on its own,” Vryburg explains.
What needs to change across the sector
Immploy stresses that private agencies cannot carry this alone. The company is calling for a coordinated response that brings regulators, technology platforms, and healthcare providers into a single conversation.
It believes that regulators should introduce a secure digital HPCSA verification API, available to accredited employers and staffing providers, and impose more substantial penalties for medical impersonation.
Additionally, tech platforms that host health-related content and advertising should deploy deepfake detection tools, verify the legitimacy of clinicians, and respond more quickly to takedown requests involving doctor impersonation.
And, finally, hospitals and clinics should enforce routine identification checks, secure access systems, and independent verification of any doctor or allied professional who joins their staff, even for short-term locum work.
Immploy is working towards publishing a “State of Clinical Credentialing” report, hosting rural risk and ethics webinars, launching a 24-hour impersonation tipline, and offering an open verification checklist that facilities can use to strengthen their own controls.
Celebrate the profession, and protect it
On a day meant to honour South Africa’s medical professionals, Immploy believes that recognition should come with a renewed commitment to shield doctors and patients from those who would misuse the medical coat.
“Protecting the profession means staying ahead of emerging threats. Compliance is no longer just an internal process. It is a line of defence for patients, for hospitals, and for every doctor whose name and face can be copied in seconds. If we want the public to trust medicine in the age of AI, we have to prove that we are protecting who gets to speak as a doctor,” concludes Vryburg.