The Democratic Nursing Organisation of South Africa (Denosa) National Student Movement has raised concerns about the increasing Covid-19 infection rates among student nurses.
The movement’s national chairperson, Nathaniel Mabelebele, said the Northern Cape was leading with no less than 10 student nurses who were currently in quarantine.
“We are disappointed with the lowered guard by health institutions to protect healthcare workers, including students, as more and more students are now contracting Covid-19 with very little assistance from healthcare institutions where they are doing their practical studies.
“What is sad is that student nurses are the most vulnerable as they don’t have medical aid since they were removed from persal system into a bursary system. For many of them who have underlying chronic conditions, this could be deadly,” Mabelebele said.
“Since the arrival of the Covid-19 pandemic on South African shores, there has been a persistent confusion between health facilities, universities and colleges on who is responsible for providing student nurses with Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) in the clinical settings. This confusion has victimized students who contracted, and are still contracting the virus in large numbers. And they will not be compensated through compensation for occupational injuries and diseases because they are not on Persal but on a bursary system,” Mabelebele said.
He said students had raised that a special Covid-19 danger allowance be paid to students so that they could be able to buy their essential protective equipment themselves if there are delays in providing them such in facilities but that had not happened.
“Denosa Student Movement has called on its structures in provinces to be a constant nerve to management until the vulnerability of student nurses is addressed. Part of this high infection rate among student nurses is that in many cases they are used to fill in the gap of staff shortages in facilities, which is completely out of order,” he said.
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