Beryl Prior is Unit Manager at Netcare Garden City’s Intensive Care Unit, and she is very aware that nurses in the private sector are — and must be — partners with the nurses in the public sector.
“There is actually quite a lot of public/private partnership work going on,” she says. “For example, we frequently work with Helen Joseph Hospital, which is not far from us.”
In addition, she points out that last time public sector nurses went on strike, it was nurses in private organisations like hers who delivered much of the care that was needed during that time.
Sister Prior trained at Helen Joseph originally, followed by a stint at what was then the Johannesburg General Hospital (now Charlotte Mxenge Johannesburg Hospital), where she did her ICU training. She then spent many years in emergency medicine, both in helicopters and in ambulances, where she saw everything from trauma to preterm births.
She then moved on to ICU work, becoming Unit Manager seven years ago. Sr Prior is very positive about the profession — she is not concerned that it will not be able to attract new blood, as she’s seen nursing draw many young girls.
She also finds herself developing non-nursing staff into nurses: she has seen a stock controller succumb to the lure of the profession, go off and study and ultimately become an ICU nurse, for example.
One reason for this, she believes, is what she calls “a vast improvement in conditions” for private sector nurses. Another is a change in mindset about losing staff.
The brain drain, she says, is always going to be a problem, and is one for many countries. “It’s a global phenomenon; South Africa loses nurses to other countries, but then we also employ nurses from other countries.”
Sr Prior says she has seen quite a few nurses who’ve worked overseas returning to South Africa — in some cases, they simply want to have experience elsewhere before coming home.
So the solution, she feels, is to be constantly training staff; Netcare and other private organisations have very active training programmes. “If we don’t train constantly, we won’t be able to achieve what we need to.” On-the-job learning and continuing professional development is a lifelong thing, she believes.
Like other healthcare professionals, nurses have had to get into the Continuing Professional Development or CPD habit –although they don’t have to rack up points to maintain their professional registration as yet, everyone in the profession knows this is just around the corner – in fact, the SA Nursing Council has been working on a CPD programme.
An important component of this lifelong learning is ethical training, especially the ethics of patient care. This is vital in nursing, Sr Prior believes, as the nurse is really the most ‘holistic’ practitioner engaged with the patient.
“We are at the patient’s bedside 24 hours a day. We are the eyes and ears that monitor and report back on the patient’s condition. And we don’t just deal with the patient — we also deal with the family, parents, children, spouses. There’s an element of psychology in that.”
In the end, nursing remains a calling for both private and public sector nurses, Sr Prior says. “It’s wonderful to be able to come to work and save lives, to give back. When you’ve nursed a critically ill patient, and a few months later he walks back in to visit – well, nursing can be a tough profession, but no matter how hard a day can be, that is your gratification, that is your reward!”