It was always to be expected that Covid-19 would have devastating and long-lasting effects on health care in general.
Annual renewal of practice licences for nurses through payment of registration fees, which differ according to the category of each nurse practitioner, has been the norm for as long as I can remember; any nurse who fails to fulfil this requirement is barred from working until such time that their licence is renewed by paying the fees, with some penalty, for re-instatement.
At the height of Covid-19, all health-care workers had no choice but to risk contracting the extremely deadly virus in the line of duty and many succumbed to the pandemic. It is not surprising that for the first time in the history of nursing in our country, in the period 2021/2022, some 21 000 nurses quit nursing, mostly by failing to renew their registration to continue practising.
I had anticipated that it would be difficult to find new recruits to the profession. However, now that the pandemic has been contained, to a large extent, it should be easy for the Department of Health to attract those desperately needed health professionals back to work.
It would also help to express some gratitude, in whatever form, to those who persevered in spite of the deadly challenges.
* Cometh Dube-Makholwa, Midrand.
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.
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