NURSES THREATEN TO STRIKE AFTER SEVEN DAYS

Nurses singing and dancing as they make their way to Cabinet Offices.

MBABANE – It’s one head- ache after another for government as nurses are adamant that they will shut down all the country’s health institutions if their demands are not met.

Just recently, orderlies downed tools and demanded the financially crippled government to comply with a court order that the orderlies should be paid about E26 million in back pay and revised salary structure.
Now, it is the nurses who want government to employ more nurses due to serious staff shortages within the health sector. The nurses have vowed that if Prime Minister (PM) Sibusiso Barnabas Dlamini fails to act on their demands in the next seven days, they will ground operations in all health institutions in the country.

When delivering the petition to the PM’s Office yesterday, Swaziland Democratic Nurses Union (SWADNU) President Bheki Mamba warned Principal Secretary Victor Nxumalo that ‘this was not a threat but a promise’. Mamba said they would again pay a visit to the PM’s Office should he not respond within the stipulated time frame.

“Government continues to recruit police and soldiers annually in the country but fails to employ qualified and skilled nurses,” Mamba said.
He said the PM, being head of government, had to do something about their demands.
According to Mamba, there was a gross shortage of nurses in the country and the nurses had to put up with long hours. He said there was a shortage of nurses at Matsanjeni Health Centre, Nhlangano Health Centre, Hlatikhulu Government Hospital, Mankayane Government Hospital and the National TB Hospital.

Others were Mbabane Government Hospital, Pigg’s Peak Government Hospital, Dvokolwako Health Centre, Mkhuzweni Health Centre, National Psychiatric Hospital and all clinics across the country’s four regions.
Further, Mamba said they were frustrated by the government policy that prevented nurses to further their studies. He said nurse assistants were forced to resign from work in order to continue studying.
Secretary General of SWADNU Sibusiso Lushaba said the shortage of nurses in their view had nothing to do with demand of nurses exceeding supply or the employment coefficient of economic growth. Lushaba said the shortage had everything to do with poor human resource planning and inability to create sufficient posts, an exercise that required about three ministries to agree on.

He said as things were, the nurse population ratio stood at 1:1000, which was unhealthy and resulted in negative outcomes. Lushaba said they had noted the suppression of nurses from furthering studies yet the dynamic of disease patterns demanded educated and skilled nurses to provide quality health care for quality health outcomes. 

Receiving the petition at the PM’s Office, PS Nxumalo assured the nurses that he would pass it on to the relevant authorities.
The PM is currently out of the country on national duties.

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