Minister must explain why no nursing colleges have been granted accreditation
South Africa faces a shortage of about 40,000 nurses. We desperately need more training facilities to train enough nurses to provide quality healthcare, especially to the poor.
Despite this, Minister of Health, Aaron Motsoaledi, has revealed in a reply to a DA parliamentary question that, of the 173 applications he has received for accrediting private nursing education facilities this year, all were refused.
He failed to explain why. [see reply]
If we are to improve the quality of healthcare to the poor, then we need more nurses, especially registered nurses. Almost half of registered nurses are due to retire in the next 10 to 15 years. There are simply not enough nurses being trained at present to replace them in the future.
This shortage is primarily due to government's decision to close public nursing training colleges more than a decade ago. [see reply] That was a big mistake.