The official opposition Democratic Alliance on Friday threw its support behind “the pyjama protest” action taken by South African nurses over their uniform allowances.
DA spokesperson Diane Kohler Barnard said in a statement: “The allowances in all provinces are far too low to actually buy uniforms. But the fact that the Ministry of Health has allowed some provinces to pay nurses higher allowances than in others has also introduced a major bone of contention.”
Kohler Barnard was reacting to a protest by North West nurses belonging to the Democratic Nursing Organisation of South Africa (Denosa). First the organisation threatened to expose stomachs but turned to a pyjama campaign.
“This innovative protest in no way endangers the lives of their patients, but is bringing to the attention of the general public the truly dreadful conditions this country’s Florence Nightingales are forced to work under.
“It is ridiculous that it is taking health authorities so long to reach agreement on an acceptable, national standard for these allowances.
“The problem of regional disparities in allowances has been brewing for six months but provincial health departments appear to be in a state of paralysis.”
Kohler-Barnard said Denosa estimated that a full uniform cost R1 500 and a nurse would need three such uniforms.
“But in the Western Cape, a chief professional nurse gets an annual allowance of R1 200. Other categories receive R910. In the North West, the allowance is R10 per month for a chief professional nurse and R4,50 for a professional nurse. In Limpopo and Gauteng, all nurses get R4,50 per month.
“The first protest about this inequality was in the Eastern Cape in November last year. The failure to come to a national agreement has had the inevitable result that the protest later spread to the North West, and yesterday [on Thursday] to Gauteng.
“If there are real administrative problems impeding an agreement, then the Department of Health should be open about these problems. But continual empty promises are having the inevitable consequence of incensing nurses even more.
“Given that the public health service has approximately 42 000 vacancies, with only 41 563 nurses currently working in the service, this kind of treatment can only encourage further departures, something the department simply cannot afford.” – I-Net Bridge