South African Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang has announced that she is to introduce community service for professional nurses in January 2005.
Speaking in her vote in an extended public committee on Thursday, Tshabalala-Msimang noted that this applied to nurses with four years of training. The community service will be for a year and many nurses will be located in rural areas.
The minister said the process for nursing was ”a bit more complex than for the other [medical] professions” because some nurses did a four-year training course ”in one go”, while others trained initially as enrolled nurses which took two years and after a period of service did a bridging course to get the professional nursing qualification.
Some nursing training was provided by public sector nursing colleges and universities and some was provided by private hospital groups.
She said nursing training was funded ”quite differently from other training” with most students earning an income throughout their training.
The numbers involved were quite large, she said. In 2003 about 1 500 student nurses completed the four-year course and about 1 800 the bridging course. ”So there really does have to be thorough preparation over the next six months,” she told a media briefing earlier.
”I am certain that with the cooperation of all stakeholders, including nursing trade unions and private hospital groups, we should be able to address these challenges in time for the introduction of community service next year,” she told journalists.
In Parliament she said: ”We believe that the inclusion of nursing in the community service programme will make a significant contribution to the quality of health care in rural areas.”
Doctors, pharmacists and dentists are already obliged to do community service before they qualify. – I-Net Bridge