Pretoria - Critical units in Gauteng hospitals are experiencing a high shortage of nurses in its Intensive Care and High Care units across the province.
These shocking details were revealed by Health MEC Nomantu Nkomo-Ralehoko in her written reply to questions by DA spokesperson for health, Jack Bloom, in the provincial legislature
Gauteng hospitals should have 3 340 ICU nurses, but only 659 are working and no new nurses have been trained since 2019.
Nkomo-Ralehoko said professional nurses were categorised as either general or speciality posts. ICU nurses posts fall under the category of speciality posts.
“As of the August 31, 2022, there were 317 vacant professional nurse grade 1 speciality nursing posts.”
She said these posts were utilised to appoint nurses of different specialisation, including ICU.
Detailing the number of ICU nurses that should be in Gauteng hospitals based on the population using public hospitals, Nkomo-Ralehoko said based on the number of ICU and high care beds and nurse: patient ratio, the number of ICU nurses should be 3 340, and nurse: patient ratio, for ICU 1:1 and for High Care 1:2.
However, she said the training of critical care nurses was last done in 2019.
“The reason was that the old programme of a post basic training has been discontinued as the new programmes that are aligned with Higher Education Qualification Sub Framework are to be implemented,” she said.
According to her, the statistics for the past five years were, for 2015: 53; 2016: 34; 2017: 55; 2018: 44 and 2019: 76.
She said the shortage of trained ICU nurses was the reason for the vacancies.
Nkomo-Ralehoko, however, said Gauteng nursing colleges were applying for accreditation of the Higher Education Qualification Sub Framework aligned to the programme in critical care Nursing Post-Graduate Diploma to be accredited by the SA Nursing Council.
If approved, Nkomo-Ralehoko said Gauteng Health would determine the number of people to undergo the specialised training.
Reacting to the replies, Bloom said: “It is unbelievable that nurse training is halted by red tape and incompetence. Many patients die because they don’t get proper care in understaffed ICUs.
“And the waiting lists for operations get longer because ICU care is required after major surgery.”
Meanwhile, the private health sector could train many more nurses but they were limited by the South African Nursing Council.
Bloom said his party was pushing in Parliament for the lifting of irrational restrictions on nurse training, and the expedited approval of training programmes.
“Rapid expansion of nurse training in both private and public sectors is needed to counter the massive shortage of specialised nurses,” he said.
Pretoria News