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South Africa faces a shortage of about 40,000 nurses. We desperately need more training facilities to train enough nurses to provide quality healthcare, especially to the poor.

Despite this, Minister of Health, Aaron Motsoaledi, has revealed in a reply to a DA parliamentary question that, of the 173 applications he has received for accrediting private nursing education facilities this year, all were refused.

He failed to explain why. [see reply]

If we are to improve the quality of healthcare to the poor, then we need more nurses, especially registered nurses. Almost half of registered nurses are due to retire in the next 10 to 15 years. There are simply not enough nurses being trained at present to replace them in the future.

This shortage is primarily due to government’s decision to close public nursing training colleges more than a decade ago. [see reply] That was a big mistake.

The President this year promised to re-establish 105 of them, but no significant progress has been made. It therefore makes sense that, in the meantime, private nursing education facilities are supported so that we can get as many trained nurses caring for patients in our hospitals and clinics.

The Health Minister owes South Africa an explanation as to why all 173 of these applications were denied when we face such an acute shortage of nurses in the country. If our government just focused on getting the basics of our healthcare system right, the millions of poor South Africans who rely on public healthcare would be better off.