Critical, nurses needed!! Sorry Dept of Education says no...

“We have a significant shortage of qualified professional nurses,” says Debbie Regensberg from the Society of Private Nurse Practitioners of SA. “And the shortage is about to become critical.”

This is a quote I got from an alarming article found on Money Web by Eleanor Becker, 1 June 2017.

"There were only 5.14 nurses per 1 000 people in 2016." - also from the article

I have had a dream to become a nurse for more than 5 years now. I did not have the opportunity to study through a University - due to lack of information and truth be told, funds.

I did my research and I heard of learnerships through certain hospitals that could be a possibility and maybe fulfil my purpose in becoming a nursing practitioner. The requirements included amongst others Mathematics, or Mathematical Literacy, which I did not take as a subject in High School. I have recently finished a course in Mathematical Literacy through Brainline Distance Learning - still waiting for my end results, but I am more than sure that I have passed.

I contacted SANC (South African Nursing Council) through there Facebook account - and the reply is that no hospitals, NEIs (Nursing Education Institutions) or Universities are accredited for a new curriculum. What does that mean for South Africa, that there merely will be a shortage of nurses until further notice?

Dr Wilmot James, DA shadow minister of health, notes in his Politicsweb article; “There are a lot of our people not being adequately looked after because there is a huge shortage of doctors in rural areas,”

According to a paper published by Professor Laetitia Rispel, head of the School of Public Health at the University of the Wi****ersrand; "The NEIs are training around 3,500 new nurses a year (Cullinan, 2015)."

Assuming the intake of students have stopped since 2015, and the new curriculum is said to start only in 2020 - that makes it about 17500 nurses that will be short in five years’ time.

I found another article in the Daily News, 22 January 2013, by Lee Rondganger, stating that countrywide, 56 percent of doctor posts are vacant (14 351) and 46 percent (44 780) of nursing jobs unfilled.

It just gets more absurd the deeper I dig.

We need answers - we need the truth. We as humans deserve basic health, but without any or enough nursing practioners, is there any hope.

There are many women like myself that are looking for a purposeful career, but we are now blocked “until further notice”.