Democratic Nursing Organisation of South Africa

Media statement  

Thursday, 10 May 2018 

WITH the International Nurses Week having begun from 06 May to 12 May under this year’s theme “Nurses: A Voice to Lead – Health is a human right”, the Democratic Nursing Organisation of South Africa (DENOSA) would like to highlight the continuing difficulty in accessing quality healthcare by citizens in South Africa and Southern Africa, with costs being the main hindrance, which goes against the principle of achieving Universal Health Coverage.   

A 29-year-old 2^nd year student, Lungile Maziya from Swaziland, succumbed to Thrombocytopenia (cancer of the blood) on Thursday morning at Mbabane Government Hospital, because she was from a poor family that could not afford to pay for her treatment (six chemotherapy sessions) that cost over E600 000 in a South African private health facility. She was the only child out of eight children in her struggling family who had completed secondary schooling and stood a better chance of becoming the only employed family member once she completed her studies. And there are many similar incidents across the region, including South Africa, where patients die due to their poor financial position.         

While the World Health Organization (WHO) recommends that countries spend at least 5% of their Gross Domestic Product (GDP) on health and South Africa heeding this call, the reality is that the backlog in healthcare service in the country, which dates back to pre-democracy, is so huge that this spending on health is a drop in the ocean with dire consequences for the 84% of the population that rely on public healthcare. 

Location in the region seem to matter the most on whether one get accessible healthcare service within a reasonable time. People in rural areas remain greatly deprived of this right due to severe shortage of nurses, resources, medication and equipment among others.  

Nurses, as the face of the country’s healthcare system, are getting demoralized by the day and their passion for the profession gets waned by poor conditions to a point where they are not able to render their best service due to severe shortage of resources in facilities. Staff shortages is one aspect that seriously compromises quality healthcare. 

Just on Monday night at maternity ward, for example, one professional nurse was looking after 27 patients across five units at the De Aar new hospital in Northern Cape! This is a greatly abnormal situation that unfortunately has become a norm in many health facilities across the country, which puts both the nurse and patients in a compromising position – patients will complicate and not receive attention because there is only one nurse, and the one nurse will be charged with professional misconduct and negligence because the patient died under his/her care. 

At Pelonomi Hospital in Bloemfontein, 30 midwives resigned recently and were only replaced by nine new appointees and three promotions. Midwives at the facility often get blamed for many deaths at the facility until they wrote their complaints to management with little intervention. 

Until all sufficient support is provided to the nursing professionals in our facilities as soon as possible and proper governance of healthcare is closely watched, we are likely to raise the similar challenges during the International Nurses Week next year, just as we have done for many years in the past. Nurses are finding it extremely difficult to celebrate their week, because of the heartbreaking conditions they work under daily in the facilities. And these challenges are known to top management.   

On 11 May, leading up to International Nurses Day on 12 May and beyond, DENOSA will be hosting International Nurses Day events in various provinces in the following dates, where hundreds of nurses will be gathered to commemorate the day: 

End 

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

For more information and comment, contact:

Cassim Lekhoathi, DENOSA Acting General Secretary 

Mobile: 082 328 9671 

Or 

Simon Hlungwani, DENOSA President

Mobile: 082 328 9635 

Website: www.denosa.org.za

Facebook: DENOSA National Page 

Twitter: @DENOSAORG