The KwaZulu-Natal Department of Health’s College of Nursing will, from next week, award nursing qualifications to 2 241 newly qualified nurses who will breathe new life into the health system, especially rural areas.
The graduations will be held as follows:
Date: 18 September 2012, Tuesday
Venue: Newcastle Show Hall
Number of Graduands: 787
Date: 9 and 10 October 2012
Venue: Royal Show grounds, Pietermaritzburg
Number of Graduands: 1 454
The media is invited to the graduations.
The highly reported ‘nursing drain’, which created a crisis of international proportions and in South Africa with its highly skilled professionals, will soon be the thing of the past. Media reports indicated that “there is already a shortage of skilled healthcare workers, particularly in the specialist categories of intensive and neo-natal care, as well as in the country's operating theatres” (Citizen, 5/9/2000).
However; the College of Nursing in KwaZulu-Natal is fast reversing this trend recording an average annual output of more than 2000 nurses of various categories including specialists. With 24 campuses under the College, the department has also increased its intake including offering training to Community Care Givers with necessary minimum requirements.
South Africa is currently battling with a quadruple burden of diseases; namely HIV, AIDS and TB, maternal and child morbidity and mortality, violence & trauma and chronic diseases of lifestyles (or non-communicable diseases). Specialists’ training focuses more in the areas that will improve the Provinces health outcomes, reverse the quadruple burden of diseases as well as ensure that the quality of care is improved.
