BY OBAKENG MAJE
DENOSA in North West prepares to embark on a massive strike after the Community Service Nurses are facing numerous serious challenges.

This came to light after DENOSA provincial secretary in North West, Oscar Phaka said some of the aspects at which the nurses who are doing their final year were supposed to be purged at different institution on the bases that the department have no posts for them as Professional nurses.

Phaka said what is painful is that they were only told that that will not be possible few days before the expiry of the contract.

“These workers are told to go and seek the job somewhere else, whereas the contract signed to grand them funding while studying makes it clear that they are still expected to fullfil their departmental contractual obligation for another year in addiction to the first year.

“The department cite that it has reached the necessary threshold of Professional Nurses according their staff establishment, and above statement is contrary to results of the research surveys that show that the Country have a great shortage of professional nurses including our province,” Phaka said.

He said the department expect nursing training institutions to expand their undergraduate intake with 10% annually where exorbitant amount of tax payers money is paid for training and development of this candidates only to discard them upon completion.

“There community service contracts is as thus; those who were funded through persal are eligible to serve the Community service for two years and those on bursary, the expectation according to the contact is six years, but to our dismay after a year these workers are shown the open doors,” he said.

Phaka said this is a matters of a concern as to this day, they have more than 300 Community Service Practitioners who are deprived an opportunity to serve their contractual obligation by the department of health since the end of April 2015 to date.

He said series of engagements unfolded with the department of Health without positive outcome and this culminated into a bilateral with the executive authority led by Head of Department (HOD) Dr Lekalakala on 20 May 2015, who acknowledged that indeed they are obliged to appoint those workers and made a commitment to ensure their appointment by the latest 29 May 2015.

“This commitment has not yet been fullfilled but rather the HOD indicates that we should have another meeting on the 10 June 2015 to give explanation for the procrastination of process, meanwhile poor workers are stranded and frustrated without a salary and this is not acceptable.

“To our dismay when the department was suppose to give letter of appointments to the Community Service Nurses, they rather gave them a verbal notice on the 30 June 2015, stating that they don’t have funds to appoint them, we deem this behaviour of the department to be unfair and undermining Labour legislations and us as a collective Labour,” said Phaka.

According to Phaka, they had a meeting with HOD of Health on the 10 June 2015, and the HOD made a commitment that on 30 June 2015 all the Community service practitioners would be appointed, process in underway to create an environment for absorption of those mentioned above.

“The department highlighted that they can’t carry out their functions because everything is controlled and approved by treasury so these causes delay, surprisingly in response from treasury MEC for Finance, Wendy Nelson in her budget speech indicated that they co-manage with departments but they don’t exonerate them from executing their responsibilities.

“These matter of community service were once deliberated on with the department and it was further raised with the health Practitioners sectoral Parliament and the respond of the department was as thus placement of community Service is mandatory and community service Practitioners are placed according to the needs of the department and today they are ignoring this issue,” he said.

Phaka further say the department of health last year at around November passed a Embargo on appointment, maintenance and purchase of equipment absurdly the MEC Masike in his budget speech. 50 clinics that were operating 8 hours now they operate 24 hours and further stated that 82% of overtime in public service is spent on health and they intend to reduce it altogether, then the critical thing is how will the department be able to render quality service through expanded hours of service without expanding human resource by appointing the newly qualified?

However North West departmental spokesperson, Tebogo Lekgethwane said “The Department of Health in the Province has indeed engaged Denosa about the challenges facing it and plans to turn around the situation. One of the main challenges faced by the Department is the budget shortfall which is a result of the over R500 million accruals accumulated over the years against little or no real budget increase in the MTF.

“That being said it is important to understand that the Department of Health trains nurses in our nursing colleges with the long term plan to curb shortage of nurses. Once student nurses complete their studies they are then placed in various health facilities to do community service as part of experiential learning. Upon completion of community service the nurses are then absorbed permanently where there are posts available and if the budget allows. Unfortunately due to the fact that the budget does not allow those nurses who completed their community service will not be able to be absorbed at once,” Lekgethwane said.

He said now they know that shortage of nurses is a national crisis not just a challenge that is facing the Province only.

“Department is now engaging other provinces to absorb the nurses who have just completed their community service in the province.

“The Head of the Department will for example next week be meeting his counter part in Mpumalanga to discuss absorbing these nurses. This is therefore a matter that the Department is working around the clock to find a solution for,” he concludes.
-TDN
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