Almost 5,000 nurses and general hospital staff will be employed by the KwaZulu-Natal Health Department over the next two weeks. The Times reports this is according to Health MEC Nomagugu Simelane-Zulu, who has revealed that there was dire shortage of health-care workers at the province's public hospitals.
“In one of our biggest and most significant HR recruitment drives ever, we have, as of this week, advertised 4,773 posts in the following categories: 2,408 professional nurses, 1,968 enrolled nurses, 230 general orderlies, 70 ward clerks and 97 ICU nurses.”
Democratic Nursing Organisation of SA (Denosa) provincial secretary Mandla Shabangu welcomed the employment of more health-care workers and the refurbishment of numerous facilities in the province, but questioned why the department had to wait for a pandemic to do so.
Shabangu said unions in the province had been voicing their concerns about a gross shortage of workers in the public sector. “We appreciate that they have decided to employ more people – especially since the workload increases during COVID. To those contracts that they are offering to our people, we strongly believe that workload will not reduce because there has been a shortage (sic), so in six months these contracts must be made permanent.”
[link url="https://www.timeslive.co.za/news/south-africa/2020-06-02-kzn-to-employ-almost-5000-nurses-and-general-hospital-staff-in-june/"]Full report in The Times[/link]