GEORGE NEWS - International Nurses Day (IND), celebrated in George last Thursday, 22 May, underscored the dire state of the hollowed-out nursing workforce, not just in South Africa, but worldwide.
Speaking at the IND congress held at the George Municipality last week, the Democratic Nursing Organisation of South Africa's (Denosa) national treasurer, Linda Hulana-Katz, listed budget-cut related burnout, exhaustion, mistreatment and a reported 115 000 deaths from Covid among the main workforce saboteurs.
Hulana-Katz referenced a 2022 International Nurses Council report that stated a worldwide nursing staff shortage of 13 million and said the shortage in South Africa today was 26 000. Shockingly, she said, the 1 000-bed Groote Schuur Hospital alone was short of about 500 nurses.
"When budgets are cut, staff is the first thing to be cut, and that puts more pressure on nurses," Hulana-Katz said.
It all boils down to patient care. Where hospitals previously had four sisters, four staff nurses and six auxiliary nurses per 40-bed unit, the nurse-to-patient ratio is now two to 45.
She explained fewer nurses resulted in longer patient waiting periods and rushed patient care. It also leads to staff burnout, which in turn impacts the economy. This as impaired patient-care snowballs into slower patient recovery, longer hospital stays and increased use of resources to treat longer-staying patients.
In addition, Hulana-Katz listed an unsafe work environment (especially when it comes to travelling to and from work), a lack of wellness services (such as trauma debriefing after tough cases) and low salaries combined with a lack of study and housing subsidies as further push factors informing the nurses' decision to leave the profession.
"Many nurses can hardly afford a car or a house." While, she said, as pharmacy clerks who work shorter shifts earn more than auxiliary nurses. "When it comes to training, they want us to be specialist nurses, but the salary package doesn't support it."
Hulana-Katz said in the past, staff buses, subsidised housing and in-service training during work hours filled this void.
"All we ask for is to be treated fairly. Give us what we are worth. Align the renumeration to the skill," she said.
She added while Denosa was pro the National Health Insurance (NHI) fund, signed into law in 2023 and aimed at providing equal access to quality healthcare, the fund's only chance at success was for these structural bottlenecks to be addressed first.
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