Kimberley has one of the best doctor-patient ratios in the country but, a few kilometres away, Warrenton Hospital battles to attract a single doctor. To listen to Sister Gail Davids is to understand why so many of our nurses hotfoot it out of the public health system. At Warrenton, a normal weekend sounds as if it were a television script.

Almost 10 years ago, Eben Donges Hospital in Worcester acknowledged a looming nursing crisis and established a groundbreaking learnership programme that has uplifted the community and averted massive nursing vacancies. ”We realised that our staff must be our most important asset and that we would need to invest in their training and development if we wanted to retain our current staff and attract new members,” said former nurse Liesl Strauss.

A fierce power struggle is raging in the South African Democratic Teachers Union in the run-up to next week’s union congress, which will elect new leaders. As the Congress of South African Trade Unions’s (Cosatu) second-largest affiliate, with more than 230 000 members, the Sadtu gathering will have a large impact on Cosatu’s ninth national congress next month.