Missed opportunity

THE DEMOCRATIC Nursing Organisation of South Africa (Denosa) commends the South African Nursing Council for mobilising nurses to march to the council’s offices yesterday.

SANC issued a circular and sent SMSes to all nurses informing them that its Pretoria offices would be closed due to the Denosa march organised to call on it to improve its services to nurses.

We view the SMSes as the first step towards admitting that all is not well with the regulatory body and that it therefore sees the need to encourage nurses to march.

However, as much as we commend SANC for mobilising nurses, we also hold the view that it is backward and not progressive for the council to have closed its offices.

SANC is missing out on an opportunity to service the nurses who would have travelled from all corners of the country to march against it. We condemn the closure of the SANC offices because the staff have given themselves free paid leave and also proved the longheld view that they are anti-nurses even though the council is a regulatory body for nurses. SANC is not the first institution to be marched to and that doesn’t warrant it to close the office. This clearly demonstrate the council’s poverty of leadership and vision.

Other offices that Denosa planned to march to were operating as normal because they have been transformed and understand how democracy works in South Africa.