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HEALTHCARE: Healthcare's Potential Crisis
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Recent public
hearings
held by government’s Portfolio Committee on Labour about a potential
labour broking ban have left at least one service provider uncertain of
the
country’s future ability to provide adequate and critical healthcare
services.
Werner
Laubscher, MD of nursing labour broker, Charisma, says that attendees
at
several of the hearings, held in various locations around the country,
were not
receptive to the message that the nursing labour broking industry
should be
exempt from a ban.
“We
heard
many horror stories at the public hearings of bad practices in the
labour
broking industry at large and there is clear need for regulation either
by the
industry or government but nursing is a critical service and faces
crippling
shortages of employees if the ban is enforced, which will force state
hospitals
to ultimately close wards and turn patients away,” says Laubscher.
He
says that the
potential healthcare crisis stems from the fact that there are simply
too few
nurses to go round.
There
are 203
000 registered nurses in South Africa but at least 19 500 of them are
not
active. Vacancy rates – nursing posts not filled – are extremely
high: 40% in state hospitals and 25% in private hospitals. Each year
around 10
000 people enter nursing academies but only a third of that number
graduate.
“There
is
an enormous shortfall of trained, skilled and experienced nurses in
South
Africa,” he says, “that is currently being filled by the labour
broking industry."
“Their
needs change on a daily basis. A pregnancy ward in one hospital today
may
require 10 nurses because they expect many new births but only require
three
the following day. If we are not allowed, through labour broking, to
shift
resources from one area to another, then we will exacerbate the
shortfall in
certain areas while oversupplying in others.
“Labour
broking, only in the nursing industry, gives the country’s state and
private healthcare facilities the flexibility to bring a hard pressed
resource
to bear when and where it is needed.”
Laubscher
says
that the Gauteng Department of Health has already issued an instruction
to
state hospitals in the province to phase out labour broking of nurses
but warns
that the shortfall in the industry will ultimately lead to wards
closing and
will reduce nurses’ incomes.
Business News Sector Tags: Business|