Media statement.
GQEBERA – As the world observes the entire month of May as Nurses Month, with events celebrating nurses held in various provinces and institutions, DENOSA and Eastern Cape Department of Health will lead the International Nurses Day celebration for the thousands of nurses of Eastern Cape in Peddie on Tuesday, 21 May 2024.
The event will be held at the Ncumisa Kondlo Town Hall in Peddie between 10h00 and 15h00, where nurses from all the districts of the province will converge. MEC of Health in Eastern Cape, Nomakhosazana Meth, and DENOSA Deputy General Secretary, Khaya Sodidi, will address the nurses at the event under the theme: Our Nurses. Our Future. The economic power of care.
Members of the media are cordially invited to the event that will be celebrating the country’s backbone of health and the majority of health professionals in the country’s healthcare system.
The International Council of Nurses’ (ICN) 2024 Report for this year’s International Nurses Day reveals how investing in nursing by countries could save at least 60 million lives each year while also adding 3.7 years to average life expectancy.
The report also shows how poor health costs the global economy about 15% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), further drawing a link between poor health and inadequate healthcare, and economic prosperity.
As a National Nursing Association in South Africa, the Democratic Nursing Organisation of South Africa (DENOSA) is in full agreement with this report as it states a strong case for investing in nursing which, in turn, will not only save the healthcare costs but could further boost global GDP by USD 12 trillion or 8%.
But the report states that this can only be achieved if governments recognised that such investment in nursing is not a cost.
The report shows that investing in healthcare saves money and expands economies because people will not spend longer times, if at all, in healthcare facilities. They will be out there in the world of work, being productive and providing for their families while contributing to the economic growth of their countries.
Nurses are the drivers of Primary Health Care (PHC) which has been recognised by the United Nations as the catalyst for reaching the UHC2030 goals. The report reveals that if countries are to achieve the higher 80 indicator out of 100 thresholds of UHC, they will have to increase the size of their nursing workforces so that they have 70 nurses for every 10,000 of their population.
DENOSA in Eastern Cape will be using this ICN report to state the case for investing in nursing in South Africa during the International Nurses Day national celebration.
DENOSA believes a phased gradual annual increases in the number of intakes of nursing students at the country’s universities and colleges will be one way of dealing with the increasing shortage of nurses. The previous advice from the World’s State of Nursing Report for 2020 suggested an annual increase of 8% of student nurses between then and 2030 for countries as a strategy to avert catastrophic levels of shortage of nurses by 2030.
Furthermore, the expansion of the pool where people study nursing, either at under-graduate or Post-Graduate levels, needs to be a special project as the country experiences an increasing shortage of both general and specialist nurses.
Resolving these will lead towards the realisation of the economic power of care, as citizens will be healthy, more active and productive in the economy.
The details of the event are as follows:
DATE: Tuesday, 21 May 2024.
TIME: 10h00 – 15h00.
VENUE: Ncumisa Kondlo Town Hall, Peddie.
MEDIA CONTACT: Veli Sinqana, DENOSA Provincial Secretary.
MOBILE: 072 432 8226
End.
Issued by the Democratic Nursing Organisation of South Africa (DENOSA) in Eastern Cape.