The Hospital Association of SA (HASA) has repeatedly warned of a nursing crisis as the government blocks private hospitals from training more nurses. In his weekly Q&A in the Sunday Times, Chris Barron spoke to Simon Hlungwani, president of the Democratic Nursing Organisation of South Africa (Denosa), about the ticking time bomb, who said the government “doesn’t know what to do”.
“When one of the World Health Organisation’s recommendations to the Health Minister was that they must improve in areas of training, including specialised nursing skills, we made a big noise about it. But it appears our government is in shock and doesn’t know what to do. They’re cutting the budgets for health, and only recently we’ve seen nursing listed as a critical skill,” he said.
The union had thought, he added, “ that the Department (of Health) had a plan, but we then realised they don’t”.
“Since 2020 there’s been no training of specialised nursing skills. They started training recently, but the numbers are very low. They’re getting desperate and wanting to attract skills from outside. But Western countries like the UK are vigorously recruiting from our shores, making the skills shortage here even worse.”
The numbers of nurses heading out of the country “are increasing at an alarming rate, especially of those with special skills”.
Reasons were varied, but mainly because of “conditions of service”.
“Our country is not improving them (and) not investing enough to add to their skills. Nurses are not being replaced when they die, retire or resign. The number of nurses being trained is very low, not enough to replace the skills and experience we lose every year.
"The private hospitals want to train but the government is not granting approvals at a level they want to train.”
Denosa was fully supportive of the idea of private institution training, but was essentially up against a brick wall.
The South African Nursing Council (SANC) and the Council for Higher Education (CHE), but mainly the government, were the stumbling blocks.
“In the Health Department, the SANC is the one that does the approvals: the CHE is under the Department of Higher Education, but the Department of Health should know the needs of the country and say, how do they add resources or assist in terms of partnerships to get this situation changed?”
Saying it was not filling posts because of budgetary constraints was “a lame excuse”, said Hlungwani.
“They were supposed to have a better way of mitigating the situation. If we’re hit by another health crisis (after COVID) our system will collapse completely. We would like to see the Health Department prioritise the nursing crisis as a matter of urgency and come up with a turnaround strategy that includes collaborating with the private sector.”
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The obstacles stifling nurse training in SA
Nursing Council resists training of new nurses, despite dire shortage, HASA conference told
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DA: Let doctors and nurses with terminated contracts finish their training in private facilities
Landmark decision: High Court orders ‘reprehensible’ KZN Health to allow private training of nurses