Issued by Ministry of Health
30 August 2005
The Minister of Health, Dr Manto Tshabalala-Msimang has announced several measures that are being taken to increasing the number and improving the distribution of nurses to support the provision of health services in the country.
Addressing a one-day conference of retired nursing in Boksburg today, Minister Tshabalala-Msimang said the National Health Council (made up of Minister and MECs for Health) has resolved that the Department should increase the number of nurses on training.
"Some of the measures that should be taken in this regard include reintroducing the training of enrolled nurses in the current nursing colleges. This category of nurses should bring a lot of relief to professional nurses who are currently overstretched.
"We are also going to reopen some of the nursing colleges that were closed down in the past to improve our training output. We are aware that as a consequence of cutting back on training and closure of these nursing colleges, the academic staff also left. Our efforts are therefore to also recruit back to the service, tutors and clinical facilitators," said Minister Tshabalala-Msimang.
The Minister will this weekend meet South African nurses working in Britain to discuss the possibility of their return to the public health sector in SA. The nurses requested the meeting with the Minister and have expressed their willingness to come back.
"I am also aware that there is an increasing number of those who left for the private health sector who wish to rejoin the public health sector. This means that on our side as the Health Department, we have to ensure that there are no obstacles to these fellow professionals coming back into the public health sector. I am confident that we will succeed in bringing back home our own," said Minister Tshabalala-Msimang.
The Nursing Bill, which will amongst other things introduce community service for nurses, was tabled before parliament last week. Community service for nurses should contribute significantly to the efforts to ensure equitable distribution of nurses to meet the health needs of the country.
The Bill also seeks to align Nursing Education to the mainstream of education by enabling Nursing Education programmes to be registered through the National Qualification Framework. This should streamline career development programmes within the nursing profession.
Provision of health services is a labour intensive activity and we therefore have to ensure that there is a sound Human Resources Plan for Health in the country. We need to have a particular focus on the nursing profession as it constitutes a very critical component of the health personnel.
Minister Tshabalala-Msimang made a special appeal to retired nurses to support the Department in promoting caring ethos and maintaining high level of professional conduct within the nursing profession.
Contact Sibani Mngadi 0827720161