The ELMA grant has been awarded to a joint project of the Universities of Limpopo (Medunsa Campus – ULMC) and Pretoria to advance nursing scholarship and education. Unique within the UNEDSA programme, this venture between previously disadvantaged and advantaged universities will combine their strengths to develop the first South African education model in women and child health: “Community-oriented nursing education programme in women and child health care”.

“No one has previously given money to nursing to grow it and make it strong. Academic nursing has been subordinated in medical schools, and these grants will focus on producing top-notch academics who can feature toe-to-toe with their medical peers. These grants are lighting a fire for nursing in South Africa, modernising the vision of the ‘ladies with the lamp’ to health care providers who are powerful, passionate and warm,” said Programme Manager, Dr Vicki Pinkney-Atkinson.

The rural-based ULMC produces 47% of South Africa’s black medical graduates, while the well-resourced University of Pretoria was the first university to introduce a nursing degree in South Africa. Together they will offer nurses a unique combination of rural and urban learning opportunities through this strategic partnership, while improving the quality of health care for nearly 2500 disadvantaged women and children per month in Tshwane and rural Hammanskraal in the four focus areas mentioned below.

The project will establish a shared knowledge centre in four areas at the Tshwane District Hospital and Jubilee Hospital: gender-related violence; HIV/AIDS and related malnutrition areas; unplanned pregnancies; and maternal and perinatal mortality. It will provide practical training opportunities to 800 student nurses each year, and scholarships for 52 master’s- and 26 doctoral degrees. In addition, over 1 100 undergraduates will benefit from rotation through learning centres and be able to share experiences with students from the other collaborating university.

Brain drain will effectively be addressed through career development opportunities for over 200 nurses at the two participating hospitals and nursing educator positions at the two institutions. The funding support will enable renovations to library, seminar and computer laboratory facilities, and strengthen leadership and capacity of nursing educators.

“Nursing in South Africa is under severe threat as 60% of practicing nurses and nurse educators are older than 40, while younger nurses flee the profession because of burnout, frustration and unfavourable working conditions,” say project leaders Prof Elsie van Aswegen of ULMC and Prof Neltjie van Wyk of the University of Pretoria.

“Our project will offer opportunities to practicing nurses, nurse educators and aspiring nurses and so help counteract the brain drain. Of utmost importance is our desire to uplift the quality of health care to rural and disadvantaged women and children,” they said at the announcement of the grant.

The CEO of Jubilee Hospital in Hammanskraal, Ms Damaria Magano, and the CEO of Tshwane District Hospital in Pretoria, Ms Funmi Ubogu, said they were delighted their institutions would benefit from this grant, particularly as it meant that learning centres would be established to advance nursing science, and the infrastructure would offer space for seminar rooms, media centres and computers.

“We want to deliver an excellent health care service to our communities, and knowing our nurses are being empowered in this way will enhance their working conditions, encourage them and hopefully light a fire for nursing,” they said.

The other UNEDSA grantees are the Adelaide Tambo School of Nursing at Tshwane University of Technology, which will establish a community-based learning opportunity for students by offering specialised primary, secondary and tertiary nursing care to communities through mobile clinics established in Soshanguve Ext 12 and 13.
The Department of Nursing Sciences at the University of Fort Hare (UFH) is building a world-class School of Health Sciences to help improve nursing scholarship in the Eastern Cape and will establish a new PhD programme and strengthened masters’ programme.
The School of Nursing at the University of the Free State, the only university-based facility of its kind in the Free State and Northern Cape provinces, will establish a unique Virtual Health Teaching and Learning facility for training students, and will establish a new unit for continuing professional development and research capacity for practicing nurses.
The School of Nursing at the University of the Western Cape is establishing the School of Nursing Centre for Teaching and Learning Scholarship to increase research capacity and provide academic support for postgraduate students, to significantly increasing postgraduate output and share best practices for sustainable, evidence-based nursing education.

Visit the UNEDSA website for more information: http://www.unedsa.co.za/