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DENOSA Free State to host its own International Nurses Day celebration on 25 May in Bloemfontein
Media statement
Wednesday, 11 May 2016
While wishing the nurses of the province a happy International Nurses Day, the Democratic Nursing Organisation of South Africa (DENOSA) in Free State is saddened that it will not be part of the provincial celebrations scheduled for tomorrow 12 May in Qwaqwa as the provincial Department of Health unilaterally hosting the celebrating without involving or consulting DENOSA in the province.
This year has proven to be odd as all the years, these celebrations in the province have been held with the involvement of a nursing organization which is affiliated to the International Council of Nurses (ICN). By its nature, the event is planned and led by nurses, and the content of the celebration talks to nursing matters. This year it is different as none of nurses have been involved in the planning of the event. Both the HOD and the MEC, who will be lead speakers and keynote speakers at the celebrations, are doctors and nurses have been relegated to the back benches and back to subservient role it used to be.
As custodians of the International Nurses Day celebrations in the country as the only affiliate to International Council of Nurses (ICN) in South Africa, DENOSA therefore cordially invites all nurses to a provincial celebration of International Nurses Day which will be held on the 25th of May at the Protea Hotel in Bloemfontein.
This year’s celebration is held under the theme: Nurses: A force for Change: Improving health systems’ resilience’, which could not have been more relevant as nurses in and outside of the province are grappling with a number of challenges that prevents them from becoming more effective and becoming the force of resilience against the increasing burden of diseases.
One element of improving health system’s resilience is ensuring sufficient staff numbers in health, as well as necessary equipment and continuous training of health workers. These elements are glaringly lacking in the province shortage of nurses, lack of continuous professional development opportunities and shortage of medication and equipment are the order of the day.
This is the frank reflection the International Nurses Day event must zoom into and come up with better solutions if the provincial health system is to be resilient and respond to the people’s needs, not sugar-coating and depiction of nurses of the province as happy and content.
Today nurses across the province are deprived the right to take ownership to celebrate this day which was proclaimed by the international council of nurses which Denosa is affiliated to and declared by the United Nations as the international day of nurses to commemorate the birth of the founder of their profession Florence Nightingale.
Denosa is therefore calling on all the nurses across the province to unite and stand up to reclaim this day otherwise our noble profession will be hijacked by those who have no nursing passion.
End
Issued by the Democratic Nursing Organisation of South Africa (DENOSA) in Free State
For more information, contact:
Veronica Fransman-Hendricks, DENOSA Provincial Secretary in Free State
Mobile: 082 854 3664
