In a country like South Africa, which grapples with a high prevalence of gender-based violence, forensic nursing unfortunately remains a largely overlooked specialisation, with little incentive for remuneration. One nurse tells Elna Schütz, from Spotlight, that every flicker of hope carried home by a patient is a reminder of why she chose this path.
Sister Hazel Moagi has won quite a few accolades as a forensic specialist nurse, with the certificates and trophies being displayed in one corner of her office at the Bertha Gxowa Care Centre in Germiston, on Gauteng’s East Rand.
To Moagi, this small table carries tremendous weight. It motivates her to keep pushing in a career that is much needed but often soft-pedalled in both recognition and remuneration.
“I call it my place of safety,” she says. “Whenever I feel down or that I’m not okay, I look at the achievements, and I say, you need to stand up, pick up the pieces, and try to do more for the community because they need you to.”
She laughs, saying colleagues would call her ‘Nurse Hero’ after she scooped a 2023 Nurse Hero award. “It’s so fulfilling, more than monetary remuneration,” she adds, and also brings a sense of pride to those who know her “because you know small things make people happy”.
As operational manager of the Care Centre, Moagi runs a forensic medical service that she says many do not know is available when they need it. On the grounds of the Bertha Gxowa Hospital, it provides inclusive, comprehensive patient management of gender-based violence victims, including children and people with disabilities, and cases linked to trauma and drunk driving.
Both suspected perpetrators and victims are helped in the building, but the sections are separate, with the entrances out of sight of each other. Inside, there are rooms for various parts of the investigative and medical process: a swing set, playroom, and colourful doctor’s room help make children feel more comfortable.
From victim to survivor
“We are turning victims into survivors,” Moagi says. It’s particularly important to her that her clients are treated with dignity and respect, for instance, by offering them bathing facilities, fresh clothes, and food. Safe lodging, like access to shelters, is arranged if needed.
Moagi says a lot of patients arrive scared, traumatised, and often in the same clothes they were wearing during the crime. But after testing, treatment and brief recovery, the physical and emotional change is so different that she says even police fetching patients are regularly surprised that this is the same person they dropped off earlier.
Cases involving children, especially those abused by a relative, are especially difficult to handle.
“It’s so painful to see … abuse that happened within a space where it’s supposed to be a safe environment, and by somebody you trusted with your child.”
The specialised unit’s work includes collecting forensic samples and offering support in cases of gender-based violence. It usually starts with the gathering of DNA and other samples into a Sexual Assault Evidence Collection Kit if the sexual assault is reported within 72 hours.
“Then the patient’s history also guides us in terms of where to collect,” Moagi says. She explains that carefully asking patients to detail what happened helps her to know where on the body it’s best to swab. The whole process may take more than three hours, and the DNA is particularly important in forensic cases where the perpetrator was unknown to the victim.
Sometimes Moagi says she and her team notice commonalities between patients, which she then relays to her supervisor and the police. For instance, there may be multiple people who have been raped describing similar attackers and circumstances in the same geographical area, even if they have sought help from different police stations or places.
“If there’s a specific trend, then we escalate to say we have noted that this and this is happening around the specific area,” she says.
When forensic samples are collected properly and each case is understood in its wider context, it can make a difference in helping police identify a serial rapist and build a case. Moagi says she has testified in court in several such cases.
While being mindful of sharing confidential details, she does remember one case in particular. “He’s serving more than 200 years,” she says. “It makes you feel good that at least we have saved more women from becoming his victims.”
Memory of a neat white dress
Moagi says her passion for nursing comes from her early childhood in a small village near Bushbuckridge.
“I used to see a uniformed nurse going to work and coming back, and that’s when I said I also wanted to be a nurse.” She smiles at the memory of the neat white dress worn by the nurse, and how competent she seemed. She says she held on tight to that vision throughout her school years.
Indeed, she studied nursing and a few years later the dream was fulfilled. She started working as a general nurse.
Several years later she attended a three-day workshop on forensic medicine organised by government departments. It was there, listening to forensic nurses speak about their work, that something new clicked for her. During the break, she felt compelled to speak to them and learn more about their work.
“From that day, I started to fall in love with managing gender-based violence cases,” she says. Around a year later, she began studying forensic nursing at the University of the Free State.
Passion over money
In specialising in forensic nursing, Moagi chose her passion over the potentially higher salary she might earn with other nursing specialisations. This is because, unlike nephrology or orthopaedics, forensic nursing is not recognised by the South African Nursing Council (SANC) as a professional specialisation.
The SANC’s website does list forensic nursing as a nursing competency, but it does not include it in the list of specialised nursing competencies, which would make someone an Advanced Practice Nurse, with greater recognition and higher renumeration.
A June 2026 parliamentary reply to a question to the Minister of Health alludes to the fact that this is due to past educational programmes, including the one Moagi studied, not being recognised in regulations. It notes that future qualified forensic nurses would probably be recognised. However, no current educational programmes appear to be approved for this yet.
The parliamentary answer indicates that even if newer qualification lists are recognised in the future, Moagi’s previous diploma will continue not to be recognised.
Moagi says she knew about this from the start and admits that it can be difficult, with the current cost of living, to see other nursing fields being paid more. She says she sometimes sees job posts with salaries for other specialties and feels a tinge of jealousy.
She also knows nurses who were eager to specialise in forensic nursing but were unable to because the additional recognition and remuneration don’t reflect the demands of the role. “I think as soon as the nursing council recognises it, more nurses will join.”
In it for the long haul
It has now been a decade since Moagi moved to Germiston and started managing the 24-hour clinical forensic medical care facility on the corner of Hospital and Cross Streets. She loves working with her team and the various stakeholders, like the police and Department of Social Development.
If it is up to her, she will keep doing this for many more years. She says that every patient who walks away with a little more hope after facing some of their darkest moments is a reminder of why she chose this path.
“It’s seeing victims of gender-based violence walking out with hope that there is still life, and they can still pick up the pieces and try to move on with their lives,” she says.
Meanwhile, another shiny trophy has been added to that table in her office. The Gauteng Department of Health’s Ekurhuleni Health District Services recently named her best female gender-based violence activist at their Annual Gender-Based Violence Awards.
The awards are nice, but speaking to Moagi, it’s clear that they, like the higher salaries she may have had with another specialisation, are secondary. What drives her is a deep passion to help and serve others.
“There are days where you feel that no matter how bad the situation, you’ve done your best to make sure the patient is managed. And by the time you go home, you know you’ve done something good for them.”
See more from MedicalBrief archives:
Changed qualification requirements will exacerbate nursing shortage
Gauteng improves capacity to cope with gender-based violence
Child Gauge flags maternal violence and neglect in SA
Health Ombud to probe nurses’ alleged refusal to help schoolgirl rape victim