BONU president outlines manifesto
Lebogang Mosikare | Monday August 1, 2022 06:00
In an interview with Mmegi, Baleseng stated that one of the nagging issues that affect the nursing cadre that he will strive hard to address is the issue of lack of accommodation. He credited the Ministry of Health (MoU) for creating more health facilities across the country.
However, Baleseng said there is a correlation between the construction of additional health facilities and shortage of accommodation for nurses. This correlation, he elucidated, is caused by the increase in the number of nurses.
In a related issue, he decried that there is also a systematic discrimination when it comes to the provision of accommodation between nurses and doctors. “We have observed that the employer gives too much priority to doctors over nurses when allocating accommodation. For example, doctors are never transferred to rural areas without the employer having arranged accommodation for them while the same is not the case for nurses,” he said.
“This situation needs to be resolved urgently because nurses and doctors offer essential services to the nation. As such, they should be treated equally and should not be demotivated when carrying out their critical duties at all times because of accommodation.” Another hot potato that Baleseng promises to address in all his power is the issue of “Call to Duty”. Baleseng explained that the Call to Duty issue disadvantages nurses because it expects them to pay for their transport beyond working hours when they report for duty. In the past, Justice Galesite Baruti of the Francistown Industrial Court ruled in favour of nurses over the Call to Duty Policy after nurses and the employer failed to reach common ground about it. The nurses wanted the government to discontinue Call to Duty-a process whereby they are expected to report for duty beyond their working hours.
BONU took the employer to court arguing that Call to Duty was illegal because it encroached on their rest period and exposed them to abuse by the Directorate of Public Service Management (DPSM).
While the government argued that the arrangement is catered for in their fixed 30% overtime allowance, nurses argued that the process was not sufficiently reasonable because they also work overtime hours.
Justice Baruti then made an order that the entire time that nurses and midwives are put on the working roll while on call constitutes working time for which they must be paid.
Baruti added that the time that a nurse or a midwife accompanies a patient on referral from one medical facility to another and back constitutes working time for which he or she must also be paid.
Baleseng also said the salary of nurses is not enough and as such, BONU will come up with a financial programme that will empower its members.
The BONU leader said the union will give capital to its members who want to venture into commercial agriculture to drill boreholes to enable them to increase their financial streams.
Baleseng explained that there was also an urgent need to correct the public perception that challenges plaguing the medical sector such as shortage of drugs and other equipment like x-ray machines amongst others is caused by nurses.
“The MoH and BONU should urgently work hand in hand to address this misconception. Some members of the public think that nurses are responsible for this. This unfortunate situation sows seeds of confusion amongst some sections of the public and needs to be corrected,” a worried Baleseng decried.
Baleseng also pledged to address issues of safety in the workplace. In 2018, Mmegi reported that three men robbed a night on duty doctor at Area W of cellphone at knife point.
The issue of health workers being robbed using violence while on duty is not only restricted to doctors.
In 2019, Mmegi also carried a story in which a female nurse was raped whilst on duty at Extension II clinic in Gaborone.
In some instances, nurses are also attacked by patients during working hours (during the day and at night), an unfortunate situation that Baleseng has vowed to address during his tenure.
For nurses to keep up with their demanding and changing work environment, Baleseng said BONU will devote serious effort in making sure that nurses attend short courses and international conferences.
The benefits of attending short courses and conferences, Baleseng noted, will enable the nurses to discover the latest trends in their sector and afford them networking opportunities among others.
“BONU will want the MoH to utilise some of its highly qualified members as facilitators of these short courses and international conferences as a way of raising more funds for the union. The membership of BONU is around ± 8,000 and they each subscribe P100 every month. The membership subscriptions are not enough to cater for the needs of our members as compared to other unions in the country whose membership is large. Therefore, there is a need to devise ways of increasing our subscriptions. This situation is urgent because some of our members carry dual memberships,” said Baleseng.
Meanwhile, immediate former president of BONU, Obonolo Rahube, was last year outraged by the shortage of staff amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
Rahube said there is currently a critical need of nurses to assist in various aspects in the health sector including in the roll out of the COVID-19 vaccine.
Rahube said the staff shortage persists in spite of government efforts to recruit temporary nurses last year as many of them have not had their contracts renewed.
Rahube added that there is also an opportunity to recruit more nurses as many graduates roam the streets, in need of employment. Before the BONU’s recent elective congress that ushered in the Baleseng led administration, Rahube said over 600 nursing graduates are roaming the streets.
“This year we have had 320 graduates and in 2021 we had 326. These are graduates from the University of Botswana and Institutes of Health Sciences (IHS). The bulk of the graduates remain unemployed,” Rahube told Mmegi then.
The government, which is the biggest employer, has in recent years not been automatically absorbing nursing graduates as per the norm owing to budgetary constraints amongst other reasons.
Weighing on the issue of unemployed nurses, Baleseng said the ball is on the court of the employer to employ them failure to which BONU will assist its members to seek jobs elsewhere in the world.
In the recent past, BONU collaborated with NEU Professionals to recruit 60 nurses from the MoU to the United Kingdom (UK).
The number is expected to rise as close to 800 nurses have expressed desire to relocate to the UK. There are fears that the exodus of nurses could cripple the health system.
NEU Professionals is an international healthcare recruitment agency head quartered in London.
It was established in 2013 with the aim of helping NHS Trusts and Health Boards with the recruitment of nurses from overseas to the UK.