Industry News

MEDIA STATEMENT

05 June 2009

In Categories: Industry News , Industry News > General

HOSPITAL ASSOCIATION OF SA

Regulations inhibit private hospitals’ ability to train more nurses

Friday, 5 June 2009: Regulatory impediments are inhibiting the private hospital sector’s ability to respond to the country’s training needs for more nurses.

According to the SA Nursing Council there are currently 107 978 registered nurses in SA, as well as another 43 686 enrolled nurses and 61 142 auxiliary nurses. Although the Department of Health has yet to determine the exact number of nurses needed, there is a severe shortage in both the public and private sector. 

Exacerbating the problem is that many registered nurses now work overseas and about 40% of all nurses are due to retire in the next fifteen years. As many as 1 in 6 may be HIV positive. 

Speaking at the Hospital Association of South Africa’s (HASA) conference currently underway in Durban, the Department of Health’s Sue Armstrong said although a number of nursing colleges had been mothballed in 1995, this was not the main reason for the shortage of nurses today.  “The closing of nursing schools co-incided with massive budget cuts and we had to reduce the number of students trained,” she said.  “We’ve never recovered from that.”

Armstrong said the Department plans to gradually re-open nursing schools. “However there is a severe shortage of nursing educators, so it will need to be a gradual process while we adequately train educators.”

Private sector providers say that regulations governing the training nurses are not consistent with the country’s needs. 

“Private sector training establishments cannot train registered nurses and are limited by Nursing Council criteria to limit training to a two-year bridging course,” says HASA CEO, Kurt Worrall-Clare.  “New training academies are subject to lengthy delays in registration and there is currently a moratorium in place in terms of new applications. “

HASA has called for the immediate lifting of the moratorium on new applications and for the  liberalisation of training within an appropriate regulatory regime. “This can be done as a joint initiative between the public and private sectors, utilising the resources and academic skills in both sectors,” says Worrall-Clare.

National Training and Development Manager at Life Healthcare, Dr Sharon Vasuthevan says private healthcare education providers must comply with a myriad of regulations, including the Skills Development Act, Higher Education Act, General and Further Education Act and the Nursing Act. Providers must also be accredited by various bodies in order to provide nursing education.

“There is a lot of bureaucracy around the accreditation of nursing education and registration can take up to 24 months,” says Vasuthevan.

Deputy Minister of Health Dr Molefi Sefularo said the public and private sector could jointly share the training of health professionals. But he admitted that it would be difficult to address the shortage of skilled nurses.

“We have lost so much time in terms of the training of professionals, that, try as we may, we won’t catch up,” he said. “We are going to have to introduce a cadre of auxiliary healthcare professionals.”

Worrall-Clare says nursing training could be provided through formal partnerships with academic institutions and should be considered by the relevant authorities to address capacity constraints. He says HASA is firmly committed to working with the Department of Health in the development and implementation of its Draft Nursing Strategy Plan for South Africa.

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