Seventy-seven foreign-trained medical graduates – barred from writing a Health Professions Council (HPCSA) bridging exam for months because the venue was too small – had to resort to legal threats to bring the impasse to an end.

And while the group will be allowed to write the exam in September, the victory is cold comfort to the would-be doctors, who wasted months of their lives in flux.

All of them are South Africans who did their medical qualifications overseas...