Democratic Nursing Organisation of South Africa

The Democratic Nursing Organisation of South Africa (DENOSA) held a successful 8^th National Congress at the Olive Convention Centre in Durban from 13 to 15 March 2019 under the theme: Strengthening Organisational Unity and Cohesion to Enhance Member Service. 

The congress, made up of 590 voting delegates and guests, discussed thoroughly all issues pertaining to health and nursing in the country, and came out with resolutions on these issues. As a clear sign of unity, the congress also elected unopposed the national office bearers to lead the organisation for the four-year term until 2022. The elected leaders for the organisation are:

·        President: Simon Hlungwani

·        1^st Deputy President: Professor Mavis Mulaudzi

·        2^nd Deputy President: Thandeka Msibi

·        National Treasurer: Alida Portland 

The congress came out with the following declaration. 

8^th DENOSA National Congress Declaration

We, the 590 delegates of the Democratic Nursing Organisation of South Africa, representing more than eighty two thousand (+82 000) nurses from across the nine provinces of South Africa gathered in Durban at Olive Convention Centre for the 8^th National Congress under the theme “Strengthening Organisational Unity and Cohesion to Enhance Member Service”.  Having reflected and interacted with the inputs from delegates and invited political formations, this congress hereby declare and commit to the principles and objectives as set out in this declaration. 

This congress converges on the eve of national election where the political and social environments are infested with the cloud of ‘politicking promise’ from different political party manifestos’ whose selling point from among the many, is to better the health conditions of our people. At the core of this ‘politicking promise’ is the execution planning which need the human capital to execute. We have indeed assessed the political landscape and resolved to advance our support to the movement that possesses a track record of championing workers issues, the African National Congress. 

The congress has seen it befitting to continue the legacy of one of the pioneers of the nursing profession in Mama Albertina Sisulu, having observed our country celebrate her legacy through the centenary of her birth, as well as Cecilia Makiwane who was the first registered professional black nurse in South Africa.

Mama Albertina Sisulu is a nurse who, throughout her political activism, advanced the interest of our profession and carried with her the hope of a better nursing environment. We have launched an annual Albertina Sisulu and Cecilia Makiwane Leadership Excellence Award in their honour to recognise nurses that emulate their values. We therefore wish to take a moment and acknowledge the immense contribution made by the former leaders of DENOSA as the fore-bearers of our profession and bestowed to them as first recipients of this leadership award for their outstanding guidance throughout the life of DENOSA. This acknowledgement demonstrates that we are inspired by them and shall strive to ensure that we pick up where they left off. The congress also acknowledges the contribution made by nursing stalwarts who played a pivotal role in the establishment and thriving of DENOSA. 

The congress resolved on naming DENOSA buildings and offices after these torch-bearers as a gesture of honour for the great work and sacrifices they have made for the organisation. 

With this declaration, we seek to advance the interest of our constituencies and the fore-bearers of our revolution who have shown how personal actions can make a difference in the world. We are mindful that the resolutions taken here will not be implemented without collaboration and partnership with our own members. We therefore commit that we will mobilise all our members including putting resources behind these resolutions in this new term of office.

This nurses’ parliament deliberated and declared as follows:

On Political Matters 

The congress engaged discussion inputs from COSATU and ANC with a clear resolve that DENOSA as a trade union movement remains a homogenous entity whose primary agenda is to defend our members against the ruthless neoliberal tendencies. The current balance of power in our country is in favour of the Neo liberal policy framework. This capital bias tendency is evident when even the employer puts cost-cutting measures a priority over provision of quality services to our people. The Neo-liberal policy ideologues who are advising government have forced government to make a call to lay off workers in an already reduced workforce in the public service. We say this call is frivolous and we reject it with the contempt it deserves. Our take is that the employer staged a well-disguised massive retrenchment initiative and in the process undermined the legitimate process of collective bargaining. We call on employer to desist from this unwelcome tendency to undermine the collective bargaining process and furthermore call for an urgent tabling of this matter at PSCBC.   

The congress has unambiguously resolved to support ANC in the coming election for a workers biased victory. We sympathetic to any force, be it political, social and economic, that advances the interest of our members.

On the Alliance

After intensive engagement on the state of affairs of each alliance partner, we believe that the ideas of the alliance are still relevant and commit of support to the road towards National Democratic Revolution (NDR).

The congress has resolved to have bilateral talks with the African National Congress to persuade an intervention on issues affecting the nursing profession and nursing education funding model as well as the severe shortage of staff. 

As a nursing profession, we have witnessed poor intervention from a deployed cadre of the ANC in the form of the Minister of Health, and therefore the congress unequivocally called for the recall of the Minister of Health by the ANC. 

The congress has noted and supported the debate at the federation level on who should be the leader of the alliance. The congress supports the position that the alliance must become the political centre as a way to get rid of the big-brother syndrome with the latitude to abuse the alliance for their own selfish interests. 

We share the sentiment that the alliance must be reconfigured, and that the SACP, as the vanguard of the working class, must be able to engage all forces of the left on its resolution to contest state power. 

On COSATU

Congress has unequivocally pronounced its support to remain affiliated to COSATU and furthermore endevour to fully participate in activities and programmes of the federation.  

On the gender question 

We acknowledge the patriarchal nature of our society in general and our profession in particular and therefore intend to support all avenues that seek to reverse gender disparities and assert women as main players in all spheres including political, social, economic and cultural. 

In acknowledging that our membership remains predominantly women, we need to strengthen the gender activism in that we declare to intensify the struggle against abuse of women and children and condemn the harassment and discrimination of sex workers. 

As a sign to waging this struggle genuinely, we commit to expediting the establishment of gender structures within the lower structures of the organisation.  Furthermore, our leadership should reflect the true composition of our gender make-up as an organisation.  

On National Health Insurance 

The NHI initiative is for all intended purposes, a drive to advance universal access of health even to poorest of our communities who can’t afford private health. However we are raising an alarm on the implementation trajectory which may derail NHI and render it another form of privatization. We warn against any tendency to use NHI as an agenda to advance the interest of capital at the expense of quality accessible health care. In a desperate attempt to delay the NHI implementation even further, the private sector has made claims that the NHI bill including the medical aid schemes amendment bill could lead to job losses.   

We reiterate our support to implementation of National Health Insurance as this will bridge the gap between the poor and those who are well-off on health services. We therefore call for the speed implementation of NHI. This call must embrace the need for massive improvement in the healthcare system whose split off will be infrastructure development, human capital improvement, enormous financial capital. Our interest is in realizing that both private and public health care are complimentary in realizing NHI. 

As we confront the inequality, poverty and unemployment, we are mindful of the fact that we need a healthy society to achieve economic growth. We call on the government to increase investment in health human resource through allocation of additional budget to improve the nurses’ salaries and cater for more nurses on the system such that we attain a productive economy.  

As advocates of NHI, we commit to eternal vigilance of the implementation of NHI in close collaboration with the federation COSATU to ensure that the implementation of this noble idea does not get delayed any longer and that no jobs are lost in the process of implementing NHI. 

On Legislative impasse on essential service 

Congress has noted with anger the impasse on determining minimum service agreement. The matter has been on the agenda for over 12 years without any noticeable interest from government to determine the Minimum Service Level Agreement, which has paralysed the process and taken the constitutional right of nurses to strike without protection. We call for the intervention of the ANC’s Health and Education Sub-Committee to solve this issue. 

On Organisational Matters 

The congress interrogated and introspected the progress and challenges faced by the organisation. In its frank assessment of the state of affairs, congress has resolved to implement the resolution of the 7^th National Congress of increasing membership subscription. This resolve encapsulated the mitigating factors that will ensure financial viability of the organisation; however the increase took care not to affect the most vulnerable of our members like students and the elderly.  

We commit to intensifying recruitment and member servicing as a way to organize and unify nurses under the banner of DENOSA.

We note the increasing need to organize nurses in the private sector as these cadres continue to work under equally strenuous conditions and yet the sector continues to reap profits and continuously issue out dividends. 

We acknowledge the increasing need to strengthen our governance and policy mechanisms as control measures to ensure smooth running of the organisation for betterment of member service.

The congress has called for an urgent bargaining conference to deal with urgent socio-economic issues affecting nurses.

As means to close the gap and reach out to members on the ground, we commit to put in priority the process of establishing regional offices as a way of taking the union to the members. 

Safety at the workplace 

We have noted with great concern the collapsing state of affairs within our institutions where our nurses are constantly subjected to appalling conditions and direct danger at the workplace without any will to protect them by the employer. We note the minimal intervention of government, shown by the continuing outsourcing of the security service in the country’s health institutions despite the escalation in the attacks of nurses and patients.   

The workplace practice environment should be enabling and we MUST intensify the PPE campaign that addresses among others the security at all workplaces and safety of infrastructure across the board.

We call on the employer to immediately attend to the security matter. We further call for employer to pay danger allowance to all nurses. We further reaffirm our previous resolution that security service in government health facilities should be insourced. 

ON Uniform Allowance 

The congress was clear on the call to revive the image of our profession and the nursing strategy was put in place but was never implemented fully.

The congress has made its unequivocal call that nurses demand the production of uniform for nurses. 

On Leadership and Cadre Development

We have noted a growing lag in the development agenda of our shop-stewards and building consciousness through intensification of training. There is a succinct call to develop DENOSA’s own training manual to talk to the unique need of a nursing cadre. 

We resolve on taking full advantage of the 4^th Industrial Revolution in our communication with our members, and undertake to expedite the establishment of digital communication channels to fast-track timeous communication with our members.   

Acting allowance

We call on all our members to stop accepting to act in any position without proper processes being followed. 

Furthermore, there is a growing tendency by employer to exploit our members by allowing them to work temporarily yet perpetually occupy higher position without fair remuneration. We further call on employer to correctly translate our members into correct and funded post.

GEMS

We believe that GEMS has become irrelevant to our members as it is now not effectively serving the members. Our call is for the scheme to go back to its initial mandate or let the membership to the scheme be on a voluntary basis as the scheme no longer serves the interest of members. 

On Housing Allowance

We note the increasing recklessness of PIC in the management of public servants’ retirement savings through poor investment decisions at the time when thousands of public servants continue to live on renting and at the back yards. We call for a review on the investment trajectory and mandate of PIC away from bluntly supporting entities such as SA Home Loans. We furthermore sponsor a motion for investment to be used internally to assist and benefit the local economy as opposed the present trajectory of investing outside the South African economy.

We commit to advancing the principle of collectivism and therefore are dedicated to the building strategic partnership with entities that are sympathetic to our interest.      

On International matters 

We aspire and commit to have DENOSA footing across the country and to create strategic alliance with similar bodies in the region (SADC), in Africa and internationally. We are a key player in the sustenance of regional body like SANNAM. We will not allow such strategic bodies to collapse in our watch.     

Congress has resolved to maintain all its international affiliation with bodies that advances the interest of the profession.  

On Nursing Education 

We note the move to migrate the Nursing Education to the custodianship of the Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET), and the criteria that all nursing education institutions have to satisfy as per the stipulation of the Council for Higher Education. 

The congress has pronounced its commitment to developing the profession such that it can be recognised within the education framework as a SAQA-accredited profession. We are concerned that very few public colleges have been given endorsements to offer nursing programme under the CHE stable while many private nursing colleges have gone through and passed the criteria.   

We commit to engaging the process to transform the nursing profession to be recognised within NQF through partnership with key stakeholders in nursing such as SANC, National Department of Health specifically the Office of the Chief Nursing Officer. 

Balancing unionism and professionalism

Congress noted the importance of balancing the two wings that informed the unique nature of the union that DENOSA has become. The basis of this pronouncement is to keep up with and engage both the professional and labour matters.

Professional development

Having noted the declining state of confidence on the nursing profession in the eye of the public, and the deteriorating quality of healthcare as a result of many challenges that besiege the profession. 

We commit to playing our full advocacy role in defence of the profession by ensuring that nursing ethos remain top agenda to all members of the organisation as well as leaders.

We note with great concern the continuing flourishing of bogus nursing colleges with little intervention from the nursing regulatory body, and call on both government and SANC to develop a comprehensive programme to ensure proper monitoring and prevention of attempts to tarnish the reputation of the profession.

On labour and Socio-economic matters 

We note the proliferation of many trade unions which pose a threat to our membership base. We continue to set up intervention mechanism as a way to improve membership servicing. Our participation at PSCBC has raised mechanism to counter and render useless the small unions through exclusion at the bargaining chambers. 

We commit to making use of this platform to advance the intervention on issues that affect nurses.  

We call for complete absorption of all community service workers and furthermore make a call for a review of this community service policy. 

The lack of will to readily absorb community service nurses after completion created an appetite for the congress to consider phasing out this policy of community service altogether, as it has proven to be exploitative. 

Congress is resolute to engage the Ministry of Health with the view to create immediate intervention on absorption of community service nurses, or scrapping Section 40 of the Nursing Act of South Africa on community service. 

End  

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

For more information, 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