UNESWA can offer community nursing
MBABANE – The University of Eswatini (UNESWA) has been granted approval to offer the Bachelor of Nursing in Community Nursing Health Degree programme by the Eswatini Higher Education Council (ESHEC).
This follows a motion that was moved by Shiselweni II Member of Parliament Strydom Mpanza late last year, which challenged the Minister of Education and Training Lady Mabuza, at the time, to lay on the table a comprehensive plan detailing how and when a Bachelor’s Degree in Community Health Nursing Programme shall be implemented at UNESWA as was resolved by the University Senate.
Mpanza was seconded by Manzini North MP Macford Sibandze on the motion, which was tabled in Parliament last Wednesday.
The minister detailed that the Bachelor of Community Health Nursing was introduced at UNESWA in 2017, after it had been approved by the institution’s Senate and ESHEC. The programme was, however, stopped by the Eswatini Nursing Council on the basis that it did not add value to the nursing profession; was a duplication of an lready existing programme and that the department must offer the programme at a Master’s Degree level.
“Efforts to resuscitate the programme have continuously hit a snag, with no academically and professionally sound and tangible reasons offered,” she said.
The minister revealed in the report that the Ministry of Health planned to implement community health posts initiative as part of the universal health coverage initiative. She said a familiarisation visit to Ethiopia was undertaken with support from the World Health Organisation (WHO).
Mabuza stated that as part of the lessons from the visit, on return the Ministry of Health approached UNESWA, Faculty of Health Sciences, to train a cadre of nurses with a very strong basic training in community health nursing.
Introduce
“These nurses were to manage the community health posts that the Ministry of Health was planning to introduce in the country. It was noted that the current cadre of nurses from the Bachelor of Nursing programme (the generic Bachelor of Nursing Science programme) were deficient in Community health nursing skills and competencies and, thus could not manage the community health nursing posts,” she detailed in the report.
The department of Community Health Nursing thus developed the Bachelor of Science in community health nursing programme, which was presented to a meeting of stakeholders in 2015 as detailed by the minister.
She stated that the stakeholders included government sectors such as the Ministry of Health, Ministry of Labour and Social Security, Ministry of Public Service and non-governmental organisations and the private sector who expressed satisfaction with the programme.
The university Senate approved the programme in December 2016 for implementation in the academic year 2017/18.
However, Mabuza mentioned that during the course of the first cohorts (class of 2017/18), the faculty of Health Science was made aware of the requirement to present all nursing programmes to Eswatini Nursing Council prior to its implementation, to which the department complied.
However, in a letter dated July 20, 2017, it was detailed that the Eswatini Nursing Council did not approve the programme, citing that the curriculum had information about environmental health programmes, which are non-nursing, the programme was also offering all courses offered by the Bachelor of Nursing Science degree and that UNESWA was proposing a programme that was similar to an already existing programme, which did not assist in the advancement of the nursing profession.
The minister shared that in 2019, the department representatives met with the then chairman of council to appeal on the suspension of the programme and in response, the chairman referred the matter to the vice chancellor who called a meeting of the dean and heads of department of the Faculty of Health Sciences.
“Several faculty Board meetings between 2019 and 2020 all re-affirmed the need for the programme and recommended to Senate that it should be resuscitated. The faculty Board implored the dean to communicate the recommendation in a letter to Senate,” she said.
The minister asserted that UNESWA, through the department of Community Health Nursing Science, has confirmed that it was ready to offer the programme as soon as the next academic year (2022/23).
Mabuza detailed that the plan constitutes that on January 2023, Parliament gave a directive to Eswatini Nursing Council to approve the programme and the council approved as per the directive of the House of Assembly and on February-March 2023, the council approved the programme presented to ESHEC to re-affirm accreditation status and approval.
Applications
In April-May, UNESWA advertised a call for applications and June-July 2023 will the admission of prospective students and on August 2023 the programme will be implemented.
The minister highlighted that the country was currently struggling to meet health-related needs of the mass population as medicines were constantly out to stock, human resources not enough, while hospital beds and other equipment were insufficient yet the number of people falling sick and requiring medical care was increasing.
“The country can save a lot of human suffering at individual, family and community levels, if it makes deliberate efforts to pro-actively prevent diseases and injuries and promote health and maintain wellness,” she said.
Available evidence from other countries that have used or are using the community centred approach in health promotion and disease prevention points to positive health and economic gains.
In Brazil, they were able to reduce infant deaths by 67 per cent through the use of community health nurses who are based in the community. In Zambia, they have been able to save 7.5 per cent of their gross domestic product (GDP), which they have been using to treat chronic diseases such as diabetes, hypertension and mental disorders prior to adopting the community-based model of health promotion and disease prevention and service delivery.
In Ethiopia, the use of community health posts has averted pre-mature deaths and saved the country millions of Dollars in medical costs. In the United Kingdom, prior to the community based approach, reports suggests the country used E117 billion per year on mental health alone but this has reduced dramatically.