The Department of Health is scrambling to avoid a stand-off with nurses who have threatened to work in their own clothes if a dispute over the provision of uniforms is not resolved, writes Marecia Damons for GroundUp.
Since 2005, nurses had received an annual allowance to buy their uniforms. But this ended on 31 March after a new agreement was signed in the Public Health & Social Development Sectoral Bargaining Council in terms of which they would be given uniforms instead.
As a result, nurses did not get the usual allowance in April of R2 600 a year, said Democratic Nursing Association of SA (Denosa) spokesperson Sibongiseni Delihlazo.
Instead, they were supposed to be provided with uniforms by 1 October.
The plan was that the procurement process would be centralised. But at another bargaining council meeting, in June, the Health Department said it would be difficult to provide the uniforms on time.
Then on 12 July, Sandile Buthelezi, DG for the DOH, issued a circular to all provincial health departments, notifying them that the uniforms would be provided from January 2024 to January 2025.
The circular stated that the DOH would use a decentralised approach to providing uniforms by using provincial tenders.
Until January 2026, the circular said, nurses would be expected to wear the new uniform from Monday to Thursday, and wear their old uniform from Friday to Sunday.
Denosa said the department’s circular went against the bargaining agreement, and proposed that if the department were unable to supply the uniform, it must pay nurses an allowance as previously done.
If the department failed to provide uniforms or pay an allowance, Denosa said, its 84 000 members would embark on an indefinite protest by wearing their own clothes to work.
See more from MedicalBrief archives:
Denosa threatens ‘pyjama strike’ over unpaid nursing uniform allowances
Dismissal of nurses was fair – WC Health
Nurses dress code – justified differentiation or unlawful discrimination?