Karabo Seema, 26, is a registered nurse from Pretoria and works for the Health and Allied Workers Indaba Trade Union. She serves in the organisation at national level as the second deputy president. Karabo is responsible for the union’s projects and campaigns, including organising pickets and awareness campaigns related to health. Her work also involves celebrating healthcare workers in the field in different disciplines on their international days of recognition and public holidays, such as planning a Nurses Day celebration. Karabo, who has a diploma in nursing from the SG Lourens Nursing College, says her greatest inspiration comes from her parents, who have always supported her in everything that she does. This inspires Karabo to invest in self-development, such as the six-month in-service Trauma and Emergency Nursing Certificate she recently obtained to enhance the work she does. “With the National Health Insurance bill signed into law, we can envision healthcare that is accessible and equitable to all. Healthcare is a right — everyone should have access to health, regardless of their race and their economic and social standing,” Karabo says.
Diploma in Nursing, SG Lourens Nursing College
In 2023 I served in the Health and Allied Workers Indaba Trade Union as a provincial deputy chairperson in Gauteng. During the first quarter of the year, as leadership of the province, the collective and I were tasked with being on the ground, mobilising, recruiting and hearing workers’ issues. For example, a group of workers whose contracts were ending in March 2023. As an organisation that defends and protects workers’ rights we planned a march to the Gauteng Department of Health, calling for these contract workers to be retained. The march was a success as many were retained and we managed to save jobs.
Comrade Lerato Mthunzi and Comrade Rich Sicina, who I serve with in the Health & Allied Workers Indaba Trade Union, have inspired my leadership skills since my enrolment in nursing as a student. How they spoke of nursing as a profession inspired me to also want to make a change. Sister Janel van Staden’s love and passion for trauma and emergency nursing made me fall in love with the speciality as well.