MEDIA STATEMENT
Monday, 29 May 2023.
DURBAN – The Democratic Nursing Organisation of South Africa (DENOSA) in KwaZulu-Natal has won an arbitration award for 52 nurses working with psychiatric patients in two wards at the Ladysmith Hospital to be paid a Danger Allowance in line with PSCBC Resolution 4 of 2015, backdated to the date they started working in the wards.
The matter was heard before Commissioner Bheki Khumalo, which issued the ruling on Friday 26 May 2023.
DENOSA took the matter to the PSCBC dispute resolution process after the nurses at wards 5 and 7 complained that patients who had already been diagnosed as psychiatric patients were made to remain and thus cared for at these wards, which serve as 72-hour observation wards for both males and females, for more than 72 hours assessment period and way after they had been diagnosed due to the limited beds at Ward E3, the facility’s psychiatric ward.
This then triggered the PSCBC Resolution 4 of 2015 collective agreement on the occupational categories that must be paid the Danger Allowance as per the provisions in Annexure A of the resolution. The list in Annexure A of the Resolution, on the occupational categories that must be paid Danger Allowance, includes “Nurses working with psychiatric patients”.
DENOSA views this award, which will serve as a case study now, as a victory for the nurses who are constantly exposed to occupational-related dangers in the workplace as a result of the negligence of the employer and without any form of the required specialist training.
Ward E3 at the facility only has 10 beds for admitting psychiatric patients. Because of the bed shortage at the psychiatric unit, about 12 psychiatric patients are accommodated in ward 7 every month on average. This not only poses a risk to the nurses who are caring for these patients as they don’t have any form of specialist psychiatric nursing training, but the patients also pose a danger to the other patients. And there are examples in the past where psychiatric patients injured other fellow patients.
DENOSA believes this negligence for psychiatric patients is consistent with the posture of the country’s healthcare system generally when it comes to poor treatment of patients with mental illnesses.
There was a task team that was put together in the province to look at the 72-hour observation units. But this task team hardly sat, which is further proof of the disdain with which patients with mental illnesses are treated as second-class citizens.
DENOSA hopes this award should be punitive enough for the government to realize the essence of prioritizing and accommodating mental illness within its service centres.
End.
Issued by DENOSA in KwaZulu-Natal.
For more information, contact:
Mbali Sabela, DENOSA Provincial Secretary.
Mobile: 072 553 1636.
Sibonelo Cele, DENOSA Provincial Chairperson.
Mobile: 072554 9988.
Tel: 031 305 1417.