LIMPOPO – The Democratic Nursing Organisation of South Africa (Denosa) Student Movement Limpopo has called the MEC for Health’s call for nursing students to assist at vaccination sites as ‘exploitation at its best’.
Final-year nursing students at the University of Limpopo (UL) were recently given training on the vaccination process by Health MEC Dr Phophi Ramathuba before the opening of a secondary vaccination site at UL on July 18.
Denosa Student Movement Limpopo acting chairperson Rebotile Maphuthuma told BONUS that while they understand the need for mass vaccinations and welcome the intiative by the health department, they believe the department should instead consider appointing post community service nurses and use them as vaccinators instead. He added that the hours given to the students were not stipulated by the South African Nursing Council and that students were given more hours than current employed nurses.
“Those nurses are already working overtime as vaccinators, so we cannot let our students work for those long and unaccepted hours as students, let alone not even be compensated for their work. It it is highly unfair towards them. The students should be in a clinical field learning all the clinical skills, not vaccinating,” he said.
Maphuthuma added that the students already know how to conduct intramuscular injections, having mastered the skill by their fourth year of study and the only training they would need to receive was orientation on the handling of the vaccine. “The department should not use this initiative as an excuse for the students to learn how to inject because they already know how to do so as part of their qualification and practicals,” he said.
The students were called up as part of government’s plan to expand the pool of qualified vaccinators who will join the current team in fast-tracking the nationwide vaccination programme.
“We called on final-year nursing students to assist with the vaccination programme as they are almost done with their studies. As the vaccination programme gains momentum, we will need more manpower to be equal to the task as we will open more sites. All our clinics will become vaccination sites, so these students will come in handy to ease the burden of our healthcare professionals who are currently responding to those who are sick and warrant admissions,” Ramathuba said at the time of training.
She encouraged and urged all eligible age groups to register to be vaccinated.
