Private hospitals want to train more nurses

Private hospitals have appealed to the SA Nursing Council to allow them to train more nurses, warning the decision to restrict numbers threatens the pipeline of future nurses.

The move to restrict numbers also undermines a proposal tabled by the Hospital Association of SA (Hasa) at the presidential jobs summit in 2019 that the sector train 50,000 nurses over the next eight years to help tackle SA’s critical shortage of health-care professionals.

“We need to maintain a meaningful supply of highly skilled nurses to avert a calamity in health care,” said Hasa spokesperson Mark Peach.

While the lion’s share of SA’s nurses are trained at public nursing colleges and universities, private hospitals have historically played a significant role too. Institutions are required to get approval from multiple bodies before they can begin training nurses on a curriculum for new qualifications, which kicks in from January. No institutions will be allowed to enrol students for the current qualifications after the end of December.

Peach said private hospitals were being permitted to register far fewer students than they had applied to train in 2020.

Nursing council acting CEO Jeanneth Nxumalo said the places allocated to nursing education institutions depended on several factors including the clinical placement numbers granted by provincial health departments and the institutions’ track record.