The National Nursing Summit, the first in the history of the democratic South Africa, was this morning officially opened by President Jacob Zuma, at the Sandton Convention Centre on 5 April 2011.
The theme of the summit is “Reconstructing and Revitalising the Nursing Profession for a Long and Healthy Life for All South Africans.”
The thematic areas of the summit are:
- Nursing education and training
- Leadership, governance, policy and legislation
- Ethical and value systems of nursing
- Planning, resourcing and financing nursing and creating an enabling environment
- Role of the nurse in the improvement of health outcomes
- Regulatory framework in nursing education and training.
In his address the President noted that nursing has always been a noble profession. He gave numerous examples to illustrate how communities respected nurses in the past. The President acknowledged that there were a number of challenges that bedevils the nursing profession today and hence the importance of this summit.
He stated that he spoke to many other sectors of the public service at which he told public servants, including Directors-General, members of the teaching profession, members of the South African Police Service as well as municipal managers that government must do things differently. Public servants must ensure that they perform their work with diligence, respect and with empathy and that these attributes must also apply to the nursing profession
The President emphasised government’s commitment to providing better health facilities for nurses and other health professionals to improve the working conditions. He noted that health was one of the five priorities of government – with health being priority number 2, only after education.
In addition, several initiatives are already in place to improve quality of care provided to patients. These include: improving the attitude of health workers; decreasing waiting times; ensuring that our health facilities are clean; ensuring safety in the workplace by improving infection control and ensuring adequate supplies of medicines and other commodities.
The President provided clear direction for the revitalisation of the nursing profession, expressing the need for the improvement of the quality of health care through nursing and providing an enabling environment in supporting nurses, to improve the quality of the care they provide, in the context of the four primary goals, namely:
- Increasing life expectancy
- Decreasing maternal and child mortality
- Combating HIV and AIDS and decreasing the burden of diseases from tuberculosis
- Strengthening health system effectiveness.
In his keynote address the Minister of Health Dr Aaron Motsoaledi, reiterated the President’s view that nurses were the backbone of the health system and that many decisions taken over the years have made a negative impact on the nursing profession. He asked delegates to use the opportunity presented by the summit to ensure that decisions taken at this summit deal decisively with all the challenges that face the profession.
The Minister also presented the four health burdens that confront South Africans. The quadruple burden of disease consists of HIV and AIDS and TB, high Maternal and Child Mortality, rising rates of non-communicable diseases and violence and injuries. Despite these burdens the health system is not geared to deal with these burdens. He characterised the current health system as destructive, unaffordable, and unsustainable. This is because it is hospicentric and curative, with little health promotion and preventive.
In response to these challenges, as a Department of Health, identified the following areas as needing urgent attention:
- To develop a national strategy for peri-natal, child and maternal health which will: improve access to health care - clinics must be open at times suitable to the needs of the community and ensure that no patient that seeks care is turned away; nurses need to educate the community and patients about the need for early health seeking behaviour; staff must be respectful and endeavour to develop a partnership with patients and the communities that they serve (health is co-produced by the health system and communities)
- To strengthen skill levels of nursing staff in the following areas in particular: emergency care of the mother during management of labour but also for newborns and children; and testing for HIV and treatment of HIV positive patients
- We have also identified a need for additional cadre of nurses; neonatal nurses; direct entry into midwifery; advanced midwives; Primary Health Care (PHC) trained nurses; and more paediatric nurses.
- We want health care workers to work as teams – this also implies that health care workers should be trained in teams (doctors, nurses and midwives as a minimum)
- Health facilities should conduct emergency care simulation (fire drills) which should include all members of the team (doctors, nurses and midwives).
- Provision of mentorship and support to district level personnel; appointment of principal specialists in obstetrics, paediatrics, midwifery, PHC,and family physicians; these teams will also assist health care workers and managers within the district to reflect on their performance and take corrective action; to improve the burden of tuberculosis by having outreach teams for active case finding.
- Trained staff must work in their areas of specialty (deployment); nurses should not rotate as this results in nurses not using their training specialty and a loss of institutional memory
- The Nursing Council must review scopes of practice of nurses to ensure that training responds to the needs of patients and communities with emergency care and IMCI being a mandatory part of the training of all nurses; improve immunization coverages and provide school health services, provide family planning services and help reduce teenage pregnancies
- Monthly mortality reviews (including Perinatal Problem Identification Programme and child Problem Identification Programme) and quarterly reviews of service delivery must be held; CEOs, medical managers, all relevant clinicians, including nurses and midwives must attend these meetings as part of their job description.
Expressing gratitude to the delegates for attending this important summit, the Minister, wished delegates a successful summit, one that would help shape the future of the nursing profession for decades to come so that nurses can be part of process of improving the quality of health care for all South Africans.
For more information please contact:
Fidel Hadebe
Cell: 079 517 3333
