Celebrating health-care workers
INTERNATIONAL Nurses Day celebrates the contribution of nurses to the health care of individuals, societies, and communities. The contribution of nurses during the pandemic cannot be overstated, and it is essential that such contributions are brought to light and that all nurses and nursing-related staff be appreciated.
A lot has happened in 2020 and more will happen in the future. The Covid-19 pandemic brought various challenges to the health-care system and nurses have been at the coalface of these challenges.
The mental health of nurses has been challenged, their resilience tested, and their teamwork strengthened.
In the future, a collective approach related to the function and role of nurses needs to be enhanced; the growth of the nursing profession is essential, and nurses will continue this work through enhancing their professional identity, their professional role, their own research, and also through teamwork with other professionals.
The past 60 years have shown rapid advancements in the professionalisation of nursing – from being an altruistic occupation to a profession with legal status in many countries .The science of nursing has been growing exponentially, with nursing-specific research and research led by nursing scientists. The impact of nursing research continues to be aligned with improved health care and health outcomes in many settings across the globe.
Nurses continue to be celebrated for their tireless efforts in influencing health care and health outcomes, in addition to being the single largest health professional body in the world.
The world requires more professional nurses, not only by qualification but by necessary and appropriate context-specific competencies aimed at universal health care.
Nurses have to look towards negotiating new health-care spaces where their professional roles, though indispensable, are aligned with future population health care needs. In the same vein, the nurse of the future needs to embrace the Fourth Industrial Revolution and its potential influence on the profession.
The University of the Free State School of Nursing is at the forefront of nursing education in South Africa in terms of preparing competent professional nurses who meet the healthcare needs of our population and the future.
Its undergraduate programme is aligned with the primary health-care approach, which is a complex healthcare model that underpins the health delivery system in South Africa and many low- and middle-income countries.
Through state-of-the art facilities, our students engage with top nursing experts who facilitate and guide their learning.
Currently, various projects such as “emotional intelligence in nursing”, “online education of clinical preceptors”, “professional identity in nursing”, “self-directedness among nursing students" and ”extended reality in nursing education“are some of the ongoing research projects aimed at improving the nursing education agenda and improving student experiences of nursing education.
In the health communication research niche, several projects have been initiated in South Africa, Lesotho, and Kenya, and have been reported in several national and international fora. Both of these research niche areas are engaged in national, Africa-wide, and global research collaborations.