A group of about 60 nursing students from a Mthatha-based rehabilitation centre have embarked on a go-slow citing terrible working conditions.
34 students are currently doing a six-week training course on home-based care at Zingisa Home-Based Care and Rehabilitation Centre in Ncambedlana near Hillcrest Township of which they each had to pay a R350 training fee for while 26 paid R500 to be trained in basic nursing.
Some of the patients at the home are bedridden, others are mentally-unstable while suffer from various sicknesses. It also caters for abused and vulnerable people and also doubles up as an old-age home.
However among other things the protesting students claim that;
* they are forced to work without wearing disposable gloves and masks to cover their noses
* are forced to cook for the patients, wash them and take them to hospital in a taxi
* if someone soils themselves, it is their duty to clean them up without wearing any gloves for that, and
* there is no security personnel to accompany them when they visit mentally-unstable patients, some of them who are very violent.
They also claim that they are not receiving a stipend although they have heard rumours that they should be getting some for their troubles.
"We don't even get told what a patient is suffering from. Sometimes it is only when you take the patient to a hospital that you learn that your patient is suffering from Multi-Drug Resistant Tuberculosis.
This means if you are treating that patient without a mask, you also expose yourself to that," said one of the protesting student nurses who declined to be named for fear of victimisation.
The Daily Dispatch was barred from taking any photographs inside the facility by some administrative officials at the centre saying it was against the centre's policy. But they confirmed that some of the complaints raised by students were genuine.
"The owner is not around but I have just been sent here to sort out these challenges that are being faced. We will issue a statement once we have received all the complaints from them ," said one of the officials
Nurses on go-slow over working conditions
34 students are currently doing a six-week training course on home-based care at Zingisa Home-Based Care and Rehabilitation Centre in Ncambedlana near Hillcrest Township of which they each had to pay a R350 training fee for while 26 paid R500 to be trained in basic nursing.
Some of the patients at the home are bedridden, others are mentally-unstable while suffer from various sicknesses. It also caters for abused and vulnerable people and also doubles up as an old-age home.
However among other things the protesting students claim that;
* they are forced to work without wearing disposable gloves and masks to cover their noses
* are forced to cook for the patients, wash them and take them to hospital in a taxi
* if someone soils themselves, it is their duty to clean them up without wearing any gloves for that, and
* there is no security personnel to accompany them when they visit mentally-unstable patients, some of them who are very violent.
They also claim that they are not receiving a stipend although they have heard rumours that they should be getting some for their troubles.
"We don't even get told what a patient is suffering from. Sometimes it is only when you take the patient to a hospital that you learn that your patient is suffering from Multi-Drug Resistant Tuberculosis.
This means if you are treating that patient without a mask, you also expose yourself to that," said one of the protesting student nurses who declined to be named for fear of victimisation.
The Daily Dispatch was barred from taking any photographs inside the facility by some administrative officials at the centre saying it was against the centre's policy. But they confirmed that some of the complaints raised by students were genuine.
"The owner is not around but I have just been sent here to sort out these challenges that are being faced. We will issue a statement once we have received all the complaints from them ," said one of the officials
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