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Recently the press reported that the Minister of Health had her blood pressure measured at a function in Cape Town. It was dangerously high causing quite a stir so then it was measured again, this time on another machine and was found to be within the normal limits. Unfortunately when a member of the public goes to the clinic to have his/her blood pressure measured and it is found to be high, there probably would not be an extra piece of equipment to check it. It wouldn’t matter as not much machinery is calibrated and serviced on a regular basis. Nurses tend to just do with the ones they have because if it was sent away to be fixed, it would take months to be returned. Nurses should not tolerate this in the interest of quality health care. A nurse in a renal dialysis unit tells how machines break daily and requisitions are filled in for repairs, but it takes days before the technician arrives. In fact, most nurses could easily pass as a technician, as it helps their work in caring for the patient if they can fix it themselves – just another one of my talents as a miracle-working nurse! Whether it is baumanometer, blunt instrument from theatre, torn curtain around a patient’s bed or a renal dialysis machine is irrelevant, because these things prevent the nurse from giving quality nursing care to the patient. The tools that are often missing are medicines or pharmacists causing long lines, or having to give dietary advice only because the medicines haven’t been delivered. The list of inadequate or non-existent tools is endless and until this changes it will limit the nurses’ ability to provide the patient with accessible, caring and high quality health care.
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