… teamwork is our secret – senior matron

HLATIKHULU – According to the Senior Matron at the hospital, Liberty Thwala, the hospital was able to provide seamless service to patients through teamwork.

He said it did not mean that they were spared from the challenges that the health sector is gripped by.

“We do have the same challenges that other health centres have raised as we are still a part of the public sector. However, our secret to delivering service is teamwork,” Thwala said.

Thwala also said team work also guaranteed a dedicated staff.

He said this works in ensuring that work in the hospital thrives and that the dignity and rights of all employees are availed.

Explaining how they manage to do that, he said they involved staff members in the decisions about their work and the environment so as not to project the top-down approach. This, he said, limited the intervention of the regional and national department structures as the three departments worked as a co-ordinated unit.

Thwala said they have three streams of staff that were supervised by their own leaders.

These, he said, were the nurses, medical and paramedic staff and administration workers.

It was gathered that while Thwala is the Senior Matron, the Senior Medical Officer is Dr Nosipho Ngwenya and the Administrator is Fortunate Sibandze. Thwala said through the three departmental leads, co-ordinated meetings to source and solve issues of the welfare of the staff were held weekly.

“The three persons meet every Tuesday, where we discuss all issues that affect the welfare of the staff. We all bring and table our reports together to solve issues that we come across,” he said, adding that these meetings were informed by preceding meetings of the departments.

He also said these meetings are for decision making on the resolutions that the staff have raised in their own periodic meetings. Thwala said while the nurses had their monthly meetings, so did the support staff as well as the medical staff. He said while he supervises the nurses, he then meets with the senior medical officer and the administrator consistently.

Dr Ngwenya supervises medical doctors and paramedic staff, while Sibandze supervises the support staff. Thwala also said they discouraged misbehaviour and even shared what the agenda of the last meeting was, being three items. He said they discussed issues of staff uniform, discipline and working hours.

Thwala said it was important to remind the staff about the uniform policy, as well as the appropriate dress code which is set up by the ministry.

He said in the meeting, they reminded the staff on how one follows the process when they need a new uniform. He said the staff, created for themselves the uniform committee, which is the one to make presentations on how to get stock or replacements.

Thwala said discipline was infused by telling the staff that they were the first point of contact

for discipline. He said while the subject of discipline was broad, there were sessions of reminders for them to handle their finances with care.

He said they discouraged that an employee could become a bad debtor who ducks when creditors have come to collect.

Thwala said it was within the hospital’s rules to treat financial embarrassment as a crime.

“We discourage people evading creditors. Imagine if someone comes to collect but is evaded to such an extent that the staff member may not be willing to let the patient go, hiding behind that he or she is still with a client,” he said.

He also said one other issue that was discouraged at the hospital is coming to work drunk.

He said the health profession does not allow any drunk practitioner to attend to patients.