South Rand Hospital observed International Nurses Day with the theme ‘Our Nurses, Our Future’ on May 24.
Many countries around the world observe International Nurses Day on May 12, the birthday of Florence Nightingale, the founder of modern nursing.
The hospital’s acting CEO, Simphiwe Gada, said nurses play a vital role in providing patients with care. Their tireless efforts and dedication to their profession contribute significantly to the well-being of patients and the community.
“They have been dubbed the world’s ‘most under-appreciated workforce’, working long hours and hard shifts to care for everyone.
“Each year, the International Nurses Day has a different theme. This year, they officially focused the event on future nurses. Nurses are our future, and without nurses, there is no future because life begins in a maternity ward.
“This celebration is also part of what we call the employee value proposition, as we want to demonstrate how much we value nurses and what they do.
“We must celebrate them because they also worked extremely hard during Covid-19. Now that the country has emerged from those difficulties, we must thank them for their contributions to the hospital and the community,” he said.
Gada said they also want the public to be aware of nurses day because they should get involved in celebrating them.
“Let us celebrate and encourage them to continue their resilience because the public health care system faces many challenges. If we support them, they can overcome these challenges,” said Gada.
Gauteng’s quality insurance director and nurse, Patient Ntamane, said they want the community to understand that they care.
“We genuinely care, even if it at times may not appear so. We encourage nurses to provide health communication that will dispel misconceptions. Some of the misconceptions nurses encounter are that we are not teaching people correctly, and if it is not taught or cleared to you correctly, you will take the misconception,” said Ntamane.
Boitumelo Molefi, a nurse and operational manager for the accident and emergency division at the hospital, believes nurses day is important because it allows them to be recognised and celebrated.
“Being a nurse is a physically and emotionally demanding job that consumes all your time. It is a complicated job, in ways that I am not able to describe and that you would never understand unless you are a nurse.
“Such celebrations are important to us because we are always busy keeping the community in good hands and don’t have time to celebrate ourselves. This means a lot to us because we get the sense of being appreciated, and that warms our hearts.”
Molefi emphasised being a male nurse has been a source of criticism for him and many other male nurses.
“The community believes because we are male nurses, we cannot do what female nurses do. However, because the misconceptions do not deter us, we will continue to do our best because this is our passion.”
