On May 16, Tembisa Provincial Tertiary Hospital celebrated International Nurses Day at the hospital’s premises.
Communications manager for the hospital Nothando Mdluli said the day is initiated by the National Department of Health and endorsed by the Gauteng Department of Health.
“Hospitals are mandated to celebrate their nurses and that is what we are doing today. The actual date of International Nurses Day is May 12, but we chose May 16 because we had a lot of preparations to d for the event,” said Mdluli.
She said the event is meant to show their nurses they are really appreciated and the hospital appreciates the work they do. A nurse does a lot of work for the community, we are born into the hands of nurses.
“Anyone who comes to the hospital is attended to by the nurses first. Our CEO mentioned nurses do 80 per cent of the work when patients get admitted into the ward,” Mdluli explained.
She added that nurses hold up the institution while going against all odds and that is why they have to celebrate them.
Mdluli said there are a lot of challenges their nurses face and she mentioned the community has a wrong perception of nurses being cruel.
“That comes with nurses working to the bone and with different characters. Some patients do not want to understand and some are rude to nurses.
“Recently, we’ve been experiencing staff assaults where patients beat up our staff. We are trying to raise awareness on that to say let us work in harmony, the community must respect the work nurses do. We are trying to heal the wounds nurses have and have organised a motivational speaker who dealt with the spiritual part,” said Mdluli.
She said the theme of the event focused on mind, spirit and body.
“It takes all of this for the nurse to be intact and able to nurture a patient. Without our nurses, Tembisa hospital isn’t really a hospital. We appreciate them in all categories,” Mdluli said.
She said as a hospital they hope nurses will look past the challenges they have been facing all along and get fired up to start with a clean slate.
“We hope they will go back to the wards and uphold the nursing values and remind themselves of the pledge they took, which means they will take care of patients with care and dignity,” she said.
Tembisa hospital CEO Lekopane Mogoladi congratulated the nurses on their special day.
“We will continue to support and encourage you to do your work optimally,” said Mogoladi.
Nurse lecturer in staff development Boitomelo Mazibuko said she is happy that nurses have a day and are recognised for their efforts.
“This does make us feel appreciated. When you look at media, we are said to be rude, and it hurts.
“We try our level best despite the circumstances we face in the work place. We are battling to get resources we need for us to be able to do our job,” said Mazibuko.
She said when nurses explain the challenges they face the community interprets it as refusal to help them.
