Nurses treat the numbers, not the patients
South Africa public hospitals are losing nurses to the private sector due to poor working conditions.
The challenge that nurses in South Africa face daily cannot be downplayed or ignored.
Being a nurse means being faced with a constant backlog of patients, as many as 500 per day, in hospitals that are very understaffed.
At any given time, one single nurse is assigned to care for as many as 32 patients, with some of these patients being extremely ill and requiring extensive attention.
With nurses having to see so many patients daily, the student nurse falls short of getting hands on training from the nurses on duty.
Robin Charles, a student nurse, says that life of a training nurse in South Africa is not the best.
According to Charles the matron did not communicate with her in English.
“She (matron) was well aware that I spoke English but still continued to tell me to do things in IsiZulu,” said Charles.
Combined with a lack of adequate facilities and other resources, nurses end up drained, exhausted and struggling to cope with the overwhelming workload.
Brenda Tifa a nurse said: “I love what I do but being overworked due to not having enough staff versus the patients that are coming in, is running me down.”
The end result is a mentality where nurses are forced to “treat the numbers, not the patient” and ultimately, patient care is compromised.
“Patient care is not on top of the list for nurses anymore, we are pushed to treat the numbers,” said another nurse.
The health, morale and emotional well-being of the nurses also suffer.
Despite being faced with stressful and demanding working conditions, many nurses are passionate and committed to their profession, and to delivering quality patient care.
However, the salary scale in nursing is not very high, especially in public institutions, and the struggle to stretch a limited salary is worsening an already difficult situation.
“I am in debt, trying to feed my family on this salary,” said another nurse.
Global Health Council statistics showed that the private sector accounts for 41.1% of all South Africa’s nurses and 72.6% of the country’s general practitioners.
“I can’t survive with the salary I am earning and I’ve been a nurse for the past 20 years in the public sector, I am applying for a nursing post in the private sector,” said Tifa.
Often health care workers may leave the public sector to work for a non-government organisation or other private entities as private sector salaries are considerably higher than public sector wages, making it easier to support a family.
