Specialist nurses are leaving SA
SPECIALIST nurses were leaving the country to go and work in developed countries or within the private sector, resulting in rural medical institutions facing a shortage of human resources, according to the chairwoman of the SA Nursing Council, Busi Bhengu.
“Human resources shortages within health care were generally related to the failure of attaining a balanced supply and demand,” she said on the eve of World Nursing Day today.
The Western Cape was experiencing a shortage of nurses as some retired or left to work abroad, according to the province’s health department.
The department employs 12 193 nurses, but it is still experiencing a staff shortage in areas such as primary health care, trauma and emergency, intensive care, paediatrics and operating theatres.
Provincial health department spokesman Darren Francis said that at 40% nurses formed the largest portion of its staff complement and were the backbone of providing good quality health care.
Francis said the province had a two-year training plan in place to address the issues.
“We are currently in the process of developing a model to address the needs versus supply of nurses. The tool was designed to quantify departmental nursing needs, the production of a nursing workforce with the required skills mix and competencies to meet health-service delivery demands, in lieu of the fact that the vacant posts are in the specialty field,” he said.
With a combined experience of more than 50 years, Groote Schuur nurses Ingrid Meniers and Maghboeba Fortune are two of the nurses who have dedicated their lives to health care.
The patients’ care has always been the priority for Meniers and Fortune, who both work in the urology department.
But with many skilled nurses leaving the country and the public health sector, Meniers said it had left the rest of the staff often overloaded.