DUT nurses’ training programme set for 2009

by Latoya Newman

The Durban University of Technology (DUT) has received a R30 million grant that it will channel into a new undergraduate nurses’ training programme.

DUT said yesterday that the grant came from the Atlantic Philanthropies, an international foundation. The university had already received the first installment of R10 million. The R30 million would be received over a five-year period and the DUT has pledged a further R20 million to the project to ensure sustainability.

Project manager Jabu Makhanya said: “When we got the status of a university, we saw a gap where we could offer these qualifications and, in so doing, respond to the national call to scale up the production of nurses.”

Prof. Nomthandazo Gwele, executive dean of the health sciences facility, said the cash injection would allow DUT to improve infrastructure at a site in the Midlands.

“Renovations, state-of-the-art teaching and learning equipment, clinical skills and computer laboratories, lecturers and lab technicians are all on the cards,” she said.

The first students will be admitted in July next year.

Zola Madikizela, programme executive for population health at the Atlantic Philanthropies, said they were proud to support the new training programme.

Asan-da Fongqo, spokesman for Democratic Nursing Organisation of South Africa, said the country had faced a shortage of nurses since the old nursing colleges were closed down.

“We welcome such a training programme and hope it will pave the way for more training institutions to be established. The shortage of nurses has led to inhumane caseloads on nurses (and) inhumane service to patients,” he said.