The Citizen reports that the Young Nurses Indaba Trade Union (YNITU) is set to picket outside the Department of Health in the Northern Cape on Tuesday, as the only nursing college in the province is on the brink of closure.

While the demonstration takes place, Health MEC Maruping Matthews Lekwene will be meeting with the union’s Northern Cape leadership regarding Hendrietta Stockdale Nursing College (HSNC). According to the union’s general secretary Lerato Mthunzi, the college faces closure because it has not been accredited by the Council on Higher Education (CHE) and the SA Nursing Council (SANC). Apparently, the nursing regulatory and accreditation bodies stated they could not accredit the college because it lacked proper basic infrastructure, training resources and adequately qualified nurse educators. The students at the college study under very poor conditions. “Students are studying in temporary dilapidated structures. They do not have a well-resourced library, a working printer or access to Wi-Fi. They do not have proper classrooms, textbooks or stationery,” Mthunzi lamented. “We will also be staging a peaceful picket outside the department of health to highlight these and other issues and hand over a memorandum of demands,” she added.

• Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Kgomotso Phooko at The Citizen

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