The Democratic Nursing Organisation of South Africa (DENOSA) in KwaZulu-Natal would like to express itself on the planned disruption of the DENOSA International Nurses Day event that we have planned with the Department of Health in the province on 18 May at Ulundi Legislature.

It has come to DENOSA’s attention that there is a group of nurses in the province who are planning to come to disrupt our International Nurses Day celebrations on account that there are still shortages of nurses, low nurses salaries and poor working conditions.

DENOSA would like to explain that the event is celebrating the nursing profession, and not that it does not have challenges. That the nurses are of the view that the International Nurses Day must not be celebrated is slightly missing the point, let alone that they are planning to march to a DENOSA event and not to the Department of Health provincial offices in Pietermaritzburg. Our view is that on that day, we are celebrating the profession and the achievements of the profession to humanity.

Despite the challenges, nurses still deliver babies and save millions of lives under conditions that, if nurses were not there, many of those babies and patients would have simply died. Often, the patients and babies are not to do with or responsible for those challenges that nurses are faced with in the workplace.

DENOSA is concerned that this stance of populism serves nothing but to neglect the nursing profession and confuse nurses into believing that celebrating your profession of choice is dependent on the performance of the Department of Health management, majority of whom are not even nurses, in resolving nurses’ issues.

“As DENOSA, we don’t dictate to those who are aggrieved, but we think they should go to headquarters of the Department of Health. The International Nurses Day event is a DENOSA event, as an affiliate of International Council of Nurses with the responsibility of holding this event on behalf of nurses every year,” says DENOSA Provincial Secretary, Mandla Shabangu. “Hosting International Nurses Day is not about celebrating the victories of the Department of Health.”

DENOSA would like to encourage nurses to be proud of their profession and raise the profile of the nursing profession through their positive work to communities, which they continue to put in day in and day out during the course of their work.

Issued by the Democratic Nursing Organisation of South Africa (DENOSA) in KwaZulu-Natal

For more information and comment, contact:

Mandla Shabangu, DENOSA Provincial Secretary

Mobile: 071 643 3369

Tel: 031 305 1417