S Belot: Provincial Congress and Ten-Year Celebrations of DENOSA

30 June 2006

Ms Sesing, Program Director,
Ms Motloung,
Ms Fransman,
Chairperson Me Motloung, Me Moleke,
PEC members,
Delegates,
Ladies and gentlemen,

It gives me great pleasure to have this yet another opportunity to interact
with Democratic Nursing Association of South Africa (DENOSAs) provincial
members and leadership. I am delighted to be participating in this programme
with such an important theme, which I was informed is “Nurses yesterday, today
and tomorrow: Claiming Back Our Professional Dignity.” It is not often common
that the word or expression ‘dignity’ is used by those at the forefront of
service delivery. Many structures, which represent workers sometimes tend to
shy away from making such a call to their members. This is sometimes due to
suspicion harboured by these structures with regards the ‘exploitation’ of
their members. I am delighted that DENOSA has had the courage to make this
clarion call of their members to ‘claiming back our professional dignity.”

Programme Director, it is important that I must indicate that it is not for
the first time that DENOSA has made an important call to their members to show
commitment to their profession and service. It is also important to remind
conference those ten years ago former State President Mr Nelson Mandela made a
call at the national launch of DENOSA in Pretoria in December 1996 when he
said; “We wish to show our support and endorsement of the steps you are taking
to unify South African nursing. The dignity of the profession will be enhanced
by the quality of service rendered and success in cultivating and strengthening
the caring ethos. We have great and realistic expectations of DENOSA and so
does the rest of the country. Government regards you as a critical asset of our
nation. You dare not let us down.” Today we are ten years down the line and we
celebrate the progress made since then.

The words of Mr Mandela are my guiding light in interpreting the theme of
this congress that I was requested to address. In short the meaning of the
theme of that congress was basically another call for nurses to renew their
commitment to their profession and it seems to me this is a continuous and an
important call. I support this fully and may I offer my congratulations for 10
years of hard work, dedication, commitment and continuous improvement to
nursing in the country. May DENOSA as an organisation grow from strength to
strength.

Delegates, ladies and gentlemen,

In July 2005 we have hosted the second Nursing Summit under the theme of
“Caring our Business.” At the conference, delegates investigated methods and
mechanisms on how to bring back and reinforce quality of patient care. A firm
platform was also created where issues such as organisational stress,
conditions of service, mentoring and the improvement of relationships with
other health care professionals were discussed. The summit also served to
remind nursing personnel of their ethical and legal responsibilities towards
all patients. The issue of transformation was deliberated upon extensively and
although this issue is still under debate, concrete programs have kicked off to
emphasise infection control mechanisms; diversity, leadership and the need for
psychosocial empowerment. I am eager also to receive feedback on the
implementation of the resolutions taken at the 2005 summit at the summit to be
hosted during late 2006.

Ladies and gentlemen, occasions such as these and the congress here today
remind us all of the utmost importance and pivotal role played by organised
events where professionals in the field meet to discuss matters close to their
hearts. The Free State Department of Health recognised the need to re-invest in
nursing and nursing education per se.

As we are all aware the new Nursing Act, Act 33 of 2005 was signed and
approved by the President of South Africa and has been published in the
Government Gazette No 492 of 29 May 2006 and is currently awaiting promulgation
and implementation. The Act also guides the new scope of practice for various
categories of nurses, which has been work-shopped at national and provincial
level.

The Department has taken the issues surrounding nursing education to a
higher level and I am please to provide delegates here with the following
summary:

1. I am excited about the development of new qualifications for various
categories of nursing at national level. This is done in partnership with the
Department of Health, South African Nursing Council (SANC) and the Standard
Generating Body for Nursing. These qualifications will endeavour to re-enforce
a caring ethos into nursing within an academic environment of life long
learning and personal development.

2. An Extended Nursing Education Programme (ENEP) for the Free State was
developed to meet the training requirements of the province and alleviate
nursing personnel shortages. The program was approved in September 2005 and
subsequently the student intake within the diploma in nursing (General,
psychiatry, community nursing) and Midwifery increased 100 percent. We now have
250 first year students.

3. In order to accommodate many students within the ambit of the available
resources and the responsibility, which each government department has to the
taxpayer, students were placed on a substantial bursary package a system, which
is aligned with Higher Education and Training (HET).

4. Ladies and gentlemen, in line with the aforementioned programme we are
currently investigating a unified nursing education model for nursing education
in the Free State. This model proposes the incorporation of hospital nursing
schools as well as the presentation of Further Education and Training (FET)
level programmes into the Free State School of Nursing. This will enhance
quality assurance within nursing education in the Free State, while at the same
time enhancing communication and personnel development between the two sectors
and providing greater mobility for students between campuses and also
programmes. It will also contribute to career pathing of students in accordance
with individual needs.

5. Our new approach to nursing education has also placed emphasis on the
Batho Pele Principles right from the first year of training. Students are
sensitised about community needs and a community based approach to education
has been adopted with various community projects being presented where
communities are assisted to address their own health deficits by taking
responsibility for their own health.

6. An Academic Planning and Development Unit has been established to enhance
the development of nursing education programmes and to assist with the
development of lecturers and other professional persons. This unit has recently
in liaison with the pharmacy department, co-ordinated and assisted in the
presentation and assessment of persons in the dispensing of medicines to ensure
that practitioners working in the province are well trained and meet the
legislative requirements for dispensing.

7. I am proud to say that the Free State School of Nursing is a member of
the Free State Higher Education Consortium and as such been participating in
various projects of the consortium.

a) One such project is related to the recognition of prior learning where
students who do not attain access to the programmes offered due to being from a
disadvantaged backgrounds but have demonstrated a clear interest in the
profession by some form of learning in this direction, are given the
opportunity to demonstrate their ability to attain success in the programme for
which they wish to register.

b) Another project is related to libraries and learning resource centres
where nursing education within the Free State was boosted by the provision of
literature to the value of R100,000 in an effort to make more learning material
accessible to the students registered within the Free State.

8. We are also engaging with student bodies and are encouraging them to take
more responsibility for their academic development and the development and
maintenance of professional standards within the profession. They are seen not
just as the leaders of the students, but the nurse leaders of tomorrow.

Program Director, over and above the progress made with nursing education
and its various aspects the Free State Department of Health has for the study
year which started in January 2006, allocated bursaries to 332 students. 232
students received full time bursaries and 100 employees are studying part
time.

Bursaries have been allocated in the following academic programmes:
* MB CHB (Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery (11),
* Diploma in Nursing and Midwifery (200),
* Diploma in Clinical Technology (11),
* Diploma in Emergency Medical Care (10).

We have also allocated part time bursaries to students studying:
* Advanced University Diploma in Advanced Midwifery and Neonatology (18);
* Advanced University Diploma in Psychiatric Nursing (26);
* Advanced University Diploma in Primary Health Care Nursing (46);
* Advanced University Diploma in Forensic Nursing (8) and
* Postgraduate studies in Disaster Management (2).

Ladies and gentlemen, as you can see our focus with the R14,6 million
available for this year is on the careers of nursing and medical doctors. The
allocations reflect the department’s commitment to development and to address
scarce categories of health professions. We have prioritised the training of
nurses with an additional amount of R6 million being made available for this
purpose to the Free State School of Nursing. This is an increase from the
allocation of last year, which was R2,4million.

In conclusion, I want to take this opportunity to wish you well in you
provincial election congress deliberations. I am looking forward to a further
interaction with you in the near future.

I thank you!

Issued by: Department of Heath, Free State Provincial Government
30 June 2006