IMPROVING SERVICE DELIVERY - RE-EMPLOYING SKILLED PEOPLE

IMPROVING SERVICE DELIVERY
RE-EMPLOYING SKILLED PEOPLE

Public hospitals are ready to give you better service. Since the Department of Health started a programme to re-employ retired nurses in hospitals and clinics, service-delivery has improved.

Human Resource Plan
A few months ago, the Department of Health launched the National Human Resource Plan. This is part of the Department's plan to address the shortage of skilled people in health-care jobs. The plan will help the Department to find out how many nurses are needed to improve service delivery in public hospitals.

Maternity or study leave
Sibani Mngadi from the Department said they were identifying retired nurses who could still give their services to public hospitals.
Because retired nurses have a lot of experience, they can give some guidance to the nursing profession. This will help the Department to find answers to some of the challenges they are facing, like the poor quality of care in hospitals.
Some provincial hospitals are getting retired nurses to fill the positions of staff who take maternity or study leave to help them give better service.
Mngadi said the move to employ retired nurses would not only help the Department to improve service to the sick and the poor, it would also help younger nurses and student nurses to serve their communities with pride.

Training colleges
The Department is dealing with the shortage of skills in other ways too. These include getting health professionals like doctors from other countries; reopening some nurses' training colleges that have been closed down; and introducing more trained people into the public health system by offering training in scarce skills. 

- Justice Mohale