Democratic Nursing Organisation of South Africa

Media statement

 

Tuesday 09 January 2017

 

 

The Democratic Nursing Organisation of South Africa (DENOSA) is baffled by the comment made by Health Minister, Dr Aaron Motsoaledi, on what he terms injustice done to nursing education after 1986 when the then new curriculum kicked in. 

 

The minister praises the system created by the apartheid regime (privileged at universities and less privileged at colleges), and these comments invoke many emotions from many nurses who understand the professional discrimination that black nurses suffered during that time.

 

Minister Motsoaledi has long held the view that the nursing education curriculum that was introduced in 1986, which shortened the period that one studies to become a professional nurse to four years from six years previously, marked the great injustice into the profession. 

 

In essence, the Minister says it is not necessary for nurses to be educated at universities because theirs is not curative but promotive and preventative health.

 

Health system failures experienced during the democratic dispensation due to challenges that include increased service demands, increased burden of diseases, staff shortages, easier international migration, ageing workforce, a generally low staff morale, inadequate nurse production are mainly due to failures of leadership at the level of the National Department of Health.

 

It is worth noting that what the Minister affectionately terms the CODESA of nursing (Nursing Summit) in 2011 was initiated and organized by DENOSA, the first of its kind in the spirit of uniting all efforts by the nurses of this country. One of the pillars of the summit was to address leadership challenges in nursing wherein the establishment of the office of the Chief Nursing Officer was proposed and adopted by the summit for further processing by government. Nursing was supposed to be able to run its affairs but in the absence of a fully-fledged supported nursing leadership structure, there exists a gap for everybody to decide on what nurses want and need, including the Minister himself. 

 

DENOSA would like to make it clear that the development of the new qualifications is about updating and modernising the practice of nursing. Nursing education reform is identified as an important strategy for enhancing health workforce performance, and thereby improving the functioning of health systems, a trend that is predominantly towards greater professionalization, globally.

 

DENOSA does not understand the debate about the nursing profession and practice to be about inability of nurses to intervene and successfully manage illnesses that the population is faced with, but it is putting a microscope on their coping levels given the increasingly large populations that seek help in clinics and hospitals against the few nurses that are produced by nursing institutions and get employed in the public sector. 

 

DENOSA feels that the minister is getting too close on the modalities of nursing education, to a point where he even makes his preference known on colleges over universities as his preferred institutions where students should enrol for nursing at. 

 

On the modalities, the minister seems to be hell-bent on bullying and coercing the profession into accepting his outdated views with regards to nursing education and training. 

 

We want to reaffirm our support for the proposed new qualifications in their current form and we have confidence in the leadership of the nursing profession to deliver the new qualifications with the necessary focus on improving nursing care outcomes and patient safety. We are also confident that the current nursing cadre is indeed equal to the task as evidenced by the overwhelming success of the Nurse-Initiated Management of ART (NIMART) programme with the resultant increase in the life expectancy in the country. 

 

We want to call upon the minister to allow himself to be advised by nursing profession on matters related to the continuous improvement and development of nursing practice, training and education. That is why we have a Chief Nursing Officer (CNO) in the department, unless this behaviour is the minister's way of saying he does not have confidence in the CNO.

 

Furthermore, nurses produced in South Africa are priority recruitment targets for first-world countries because of the quality of education offered locally. Yes, the quality needs constant checks and modifications, but to term the current curriculum as the regime of injustice to nursing profession presupposes that the current crop of nurses produced under this curriculum, which dates as far back as 31 years ago, is of inferior quality. All nursing services are currently provided by majority same nurses that the minister blames for systemic failures, and same nurses that shine in the private sector and overseas due to better conditions. 

 

While DENOSA leadership seeks an audience with the minister over this matter and many other issues that continue to bottle our profession, we call upon all nurses to unite in condemning restless statements made by the minister or any other government officials.

 

END

 

Issued by the Democratic Nursing Organisation of South Africa (DENOSA)

 

For more information and comment, contact:

 

Cassim Lekhoathi, Acting General Secretary.

Mobile: 082 328 9671

Or

Simon Hlungwani, DENOSA President

Mobile: 082 328 9635