Anso Thom: The Cape Times
A PRIVATE hospital group is recruiting nurses from India to work in its Western Cape intensive care unit wards where the shortage is most critical. The first group of nurses will arrive at Medi-Clinic hospitals next month. They are expected to stay for at least three years until there are enough South African nurses to fill the posts. Medi-Clinic nursing director Estelle Jordaan said the move has attracted a lot of criticism from the nursing community which felt the nurses may not be as competent, but she said they had decided on India because their nurses were well trained, they had more nurses in the country than they were able to employ, and their work ethic was unbelievable. Jordaan said the rationalisation of nursing training institutions in the Western Cape had had a big effect on the number of nurses available.
She said that the province went from four nursing colleges and three universities training nurses to one of each. Many highly trained and experienced nurses have left the country to work in the UK and the Middle East, where salaries are better. Three years ago, Medi-Clinic placed advertisements in the Middle East and the UK in the hope of attracting South Africans back to the country. Jordaan said that there was a lot of enthusiasm, but salaries then were not competitive. In December 2005, Jordaan visited the Philippines, India and Singapore. Even though nurses don't receive dedicated intensive-care nurse training in India, she said it was included as a module in their UK-based syllabus.
Medi-Clinic advertised 150 posts in India and received 3 500 applications. In all, 23 nurses wrote a Nursing Council Exam recently. Jordaan said the nurses would be paid the same as their SA colleagues, but they would receive accommodation allowances, as they were contract workers, and would not be paid a pension benefit. Another drawcard is the fact that one month's salary in South Africa is equivalent to a year's pay in India. Jordaan has returned to India and recruited an extra 120 nurses, who are expected to arrive within the next year.
