The vacancy rate of nurses and general staff at hospitals in Limpopo has increased since 2022. This is according to two health sector unions, DENOSA and HOSPERSA.

The two unions say there are staff shortages at some clinics and hospitals, resulting in an unbalanced ratio of nurses compared to the population size.

HOSPERSA spokesperson Thulani Maluleke says workers who go on retirement are not being replaced.

“Some other nurses are resigning because of these challenges, some are consulting psychologists because of fatigue, some are even going as far as doing negligence unwillingly. Two weeks back, I called one of the managers in the district to say I had received a complaint to say there is a nurse who is working alone the whole night shift. We are likely to repeat the incident of Chuene Clinic because of what a male patient comes to that particular clinic and finds that one nurse.”

Provincial Health spokesperson Neil Shikwambana says, “Now we are undertaking a process where we’re utilising established scientific methods to ensure that our staff members in the system are allocated based on the needs of the population, or the customers we serve. In the department, for instance, in the nursing category, you know that in the ICU, the ratio of a nurse to a patient should be one-to-one. Those are the calculations we need to apply. In primary health care, for instance, one professional nurse is responsible for 40 patients per shift.”