SA’s health emergency | Concern over critical nursing shortage

JOHANNESBURG - Netcare is concerned over a shortage of nurses.

There is a shortage of up to 62,000 healthcare workers in the country.

READ: SA’s health emergency | Gauteng contract nurses demand permanent posts

The country’s largest private healthcare network says this is putting both the public and private sectors at risk.

It says the crisis is partly to blame on government's restrictions on private-sector nursing training.

Netcare previously trained over 3,000 nurses annually, but it's now restricted to a fraction of that number.

READ: SA needs 26,000 additional nurses

Another issue is that a significant proportion of healthcare professionals are set to retire by 2030.

"We urgently need to fill that pipeline with new nurses, young nurses and people willing to come into the healthcare sector and to be trained as healthcare workers," said Netcare CEO Richard Friedland.

"There is no excuse not to allow the private sector to be training more nurses."