The City formalises field-based nursing training

The City of Joburg formalised the placement of nursing students in its healthcare facilities for their experiential learning.

Although this field-based learning had been done for many years, the city council wanted to formalise it. The city council’s health department signed a Memorandum of Understanding with 11 private and public nursing colleges in an effort to more adequately equip nursing students for the conditions they will face when entering the field.

According to the council, the memorandum would serve to ensure a closer working relationship with nursing colleges so that students would be able to understand the context within which their training was planned.

In addition to addressing the high levels of diseases, including HIV/Aids, communicable and non – communicable diseases, violence and injuries, training nurses needed to be prepared for the new challenges facing the health department. These were the re-engineering of Primary Health Care, which included the Ward Based Outreach Teams, strengthening School Health Services and the appointment of the District Specialist Teams.

The city council added that professionalism and ethics would be integrated and emphasised in the modules being taught in order to improve the quality of health services being offered to the community.

Further, the council said nursing education would undergo major changes from 2016 in order to address the many challenges facing the health department.

An improved nursing education is necessary to ensure that the current and future generations of nurses were able to provide safe, quality and patient-centred care for all citizens, the city council added.-