Special Hearings — Health Sector Hearings — 1997-06-18

MARY MOLEKO: Madam Chair allow me a few minutes to indicate these areas of violation of the rights of nurses.
1. Violation to practice ethically.
 This is in relation to theoretical requirements versus enforcement of law and order where nurses are expected to give patients charged to members from the law.
    2. Violation of rights to recognition.
 Promotion opportunities were scarce.  Many nurses retired as juniors.
 3. Rights to practice safely.  Lack of equipment.  Outdated equipment.  Lack of professional development opportunities. Overcrowding of patients in the ward.  Nursing patients on floor beds.  Babies nursed in cots in twos and threes.  Staff shortages that have not been attended to over the years.
 4. Violation to the rights to provide care.  On an occasion a White doctor failed to put up an intravenous drip and left a dehydrated patient who needed the drip urgently.  A registered nurse managed to put the drip up and on informing the doctor of this the doctor phoned back and said "pull the damn thing out of that hand".  When the nurse reported to her supervisor the supervisor said let the drip run as fast as you can so that when doctor return he find the bottle empty.
 5. Violation of the rights to decision-making processes.
 Nurses and their supervisors find themselves forced to implement policies into which they had no input and to which - which of course they do not support.  This leaves them with anger, frustration and a sense of guilt and they remain with this loss of credibility for appearing to have colluded with the unjust system.
 6. Violation to the rights to safety and security.
 Nurses associated with people of particular ideologies were persecuted for this association.  Some of them were ill-treated and forced to leave. 
 7. Violation to the rights to practice with dignity.
 The supervisors, who were mostly White at the time, did not believe that Black registered nurses knew anything.  This led to the nurses developing a low self-esteem and self-confidence.
 8. Violation to the rights to safeguard the dignity of their patients.
 A number of patients, particularly in the mines, an incident is related where males were made to undress and stand naked whilst the doctor examined them for sexually transmitted diseases.
 9. The violation of the rights of nurses within education.
 Violation of students' rights to equal education.  It is a well-known and well-documented fact that our students learn in inadequate facilities.  Incidents were cited where students were educated in separate institutions and where Black and White were accommodated in the same building the premises were separated by double doors which were kept closed.  Even a communal quadrangle had a six-foot wire fence separating the students from each other.  Even though the curriculum is similar at the end of training the South African Nursing Council issues certificates indicating race, and there are individuals who have qualified who have certificates indicating that they were entered into the register for Natives or Bantu and for Black depending on the regulation that was operative at the time.
 10. Violation to the rights of tutors to equatable conditions.  
 This has already been mentioned that conditions are not conducive to learning and to studying and that opportunities for professional development became lesser and lesser for the Blacks.
 11. Violation of the rights of nurses to educational advancement.
 12. Violation of the rights of nurses to appropriate education.
 It is felt that education has to be appropriate to the setting and to the consumers.  There isn't enough stress on ethics within a human rights context.  There isn't enough stress to culture congruence care.
 The next section deals with violation of the rights of nurses as women.
1. Women doing the same work earn less than their male counterparts.
 Women were not afforded subsidies and housing loans.  A number of women had to divorce their husbands in order to qualify for these loans.
 2. Violation of rights of women to maternity leave and reproductive choices.
 Women were made to resign as there was no paid maternity leave.  It was only late in the nineties that this was made available, even then only for 84 days.
 Madam Chair I will hand over to Sheila to continue.

UNKNOWN: Sheila you have two minutes.

SHEILA CLOW: The last violation relates to nursing as a profession, and just some of the things where there's been incongruence between legislation and the type of caring and ethical base that one could expect in nursing.
 Some of these incongruencies in terms of having to implement legislation has resulted in the formation of Homeland structures; the failure of professional associations and regulatory bodies to investigate inconsistencies in health care provision; the failure of these bodies to represent and defend the interests of Black nurses; the failure of these bodies to provide leadership, guidance and protection for nurses in response to political violence.   And then the withdrawal of the South African Nursing Association from the International Council of Nurses in 1973.
 In conclusion.  We request assistance from the TRC for research support to enable us to complete the final phase of this submission on nursing in South Africa during the period under review.  We recognise the need to reflect on the past in order to proceed with planning for the future, and in particular to inform strategies aimed at preventing the recurrence of past irregularities, inconsistencies and injustices.
 However, it would be premature to make recommendations for future action and reparation before this particular process is complete, but these recommendations will be forthcoming in the final submission in October.
 What is clear is that a fundamental shift in attitude is required, both within nursing and the health sector in general which respects the worth and rights of those both seeking care and those giving care.  DeNOSA is committed to being part of that process.

UNKNOWN: Thank you very much to both of you.  I do have quite a few questions which I won't ask now because you have pledged to give us a more complete submission later on this year when you have done some more research and you can give a more complete version of what the status of the Nursing Association was before and how you've moved towards unity.
 I cannot resist the temptation to comment about the conversions of events in that the South African Nursing Association, as it was known then, had walked out of ICN, that's one version of the story, and that DeNOSA is now being admitted to ICN.  I think that the story of SANA not being in the ICN for such a long time is a story that has to be told and many people do need to know and hear that story, and hopefully that will come into the submission later on.

SHEILA CLOW: Madam Chair, certainly that will be in our submission.  However, Mrs Moleko was at Mexico City when South Africa withdrew from the ICN, perhaps you would like her to comment briefly at this point.

UNKNOWN: I would have to ask the Chair if we would have that indulgence.

MS MKHIZE: No.  I just would like to thank you very much for your presentation, and also to say, as a newly-born organisation, I hope it won't be a change in name, but in terms of policies and practices.  Thank you very much for coming.

SHEILA CLOW: I am sorry there isn't an opportunity to flesh those out now, but they will be in the final submission.

MARY MOLEKO: Our constitution bears witness to our commitment.

MS MKHIZE: Thank you.
NAMDA  SUBMISSION

MS MKHIZE: I would like to ask the NAMDA representative to come forward please.  Welcome.  As I indicated when I invited DeNOSA, I should think this will apply to your organisation as well, we will try to channel you to talk to those areas which haven't been documented.  First of all I would like you to stand to take the oath.