A friend of mine said that he had a chat with a client who was involved with temporary nursing staff and after he read my article about the problems I had with nurses at a Clinic, he was reminded of his conversation that a large percentage of nurses at many institutions are brought in as temporary workers according to the capacity of the ward.

This has led to a situation where in some cases, apparently, nurses over-commit themselves and agree to go to more than one hospital on a night and send along untrained relatives or friends! The mind boggles, and I can certainly hope and pray that all reputable hospitals all have ways and means of checking that the temporary staff that are coming in for the day actually are nurses! On the other hand, I can tell you plenty of tales of admin staff and indeed other nurses, in various institutions, who are staggering around drunk. It is not so long ago after all, that our own Minister of Health wanted to treat Aids victims with beetroot and garlic, so if that was what we had at the very top of our health system, I guess one can believe almost anything. I have no doubt that there are hundreds and thousands of hard-working doctors and nurses who are underpaid (as I have made clear in my previous article) and overworked and are doing their best in very trying circumstances.

In a case against the Law Society of South Africa, the Department of Health and the Road Accident Fund alleged that comments about the capacity of State Hospitals to give proper and adequate treatment to accident victims were not fair and that they have adequate capacity. The doctor making the affidavit in the matter on behalf of the Department of Health then went on to refer to an annexure, which actually contradicted his affidavit, and to concede that in many respects, while they have the capacity to give certain types of treatment, they never have the staff to actually give it! I don’t think we must fool ourselves that we have a run-down health system in South Africa and it is not improving! We have also lost far too many talented doctors, nurses and specialists to various overseas countries which have head-hunted many of our top talents.