Nursing students in fraud probe
ANOTHER 26 nursing students have been red-flagged amid an intensifying fraud investigation into how unqualified youths have enrolled for state-funded nursing training.
The health department launched the probe about a fortnight ago after 10 students were discovered to not have met the minimum requirements to study at Lilitha Nursing College.
The college, which sends its students to public hospitals in East London, Port Elizabeth, Komani, Lusikisiki and Mthatha for practical training, is dogged by allegations of bribery, where undeserving students are said to be paying at least R2 500 bribes to secure enrolment for the four-year nursing diploma.
The 10 students have been fired by the department, while health officials who formed part of the selection committee were placed under scrutiny.
Some of the 10 did not have the compulsory life sciences/biology subjects or scored fewer than the 18 points required for admission.
The discovery was made three months into the first year of the course when the students were being registered with the South African Nursing Council (SANC).
The SANC is a statutory governing body which assures quality service at hospitals. The students are supposed to be registered with SANC before they can do their practicals at hospitals. Nursing students receive a monthly stipend of R4 100 from the department of health.
An official report compiled by the department of health, which was leaked to the Daily Dispatch this weekend, shows that 15 first-year students doing their training at various public hospitals in Port Elizabeth did not have the compulsory mathematics subject in their senior certificates. A further 11, all based at Komani’s Frontier Hospital, reportedly did not even have matric certificates.
Health spokesman Sizwe Kupelo promised to comment about the latest revelation when he had a response from relevant officials.
Lecturers at the Port Elizabeth campus said they refused to be part of “fraudulent” activities and they were not going to teach “incompetent” students.
But Port Elizabeth campus head Lulama Zonke-Malamane dismissed the fraud, corruption and nepotism claims in a letter addressed to the chairman of the Lecturers Forum, Siyabonga Martins. —