Marseille 2007
| Abstract #471 - 'We Missing the olden days where nursing was respected' : a case study looking at how nurses cope with the burdens of increased HIV/AIDS cases. | ||||
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Session: 6.54: Posters A (Poster) on Monday in Chaired by Authors: Presenting Author: Ms Tebogo Gumede - Centre for Health Policy, South Africa |
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| Additional Authors: Ms Loveday Penn-Kekana, Dr Helen Schneider , | ||||
| Aim: South Africa is battling with ways to be implemented in fighting the HIV and AIDS epidemic amongst generally affected and infected public. In recent years it has been observed that health providers are affected in their work place by various negative impacts for example trauma of seeing people die, denial by patients and failure of patients t take drugs. Various observation and studies including this one shows that health providers performance is negatively affected by lack of resources and support at the work place. This paper arises from the Gauteng Provincial Governments Department of Health (South Africa) project titled burnout and associated factors in health professionals in four hospitals. This underwritten study is a follow up and attempts to interrogate the nature of decision making and underlying rational in relation to resource allocation to adult medical patients at Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital. This study will look at among other things the nature and type of pressures placed by HIV/AIDS on health providers, surviving mechanisms they employ to cope with these pressures, their attitudes towards patients and their profession. The purpose of this paper is to present initial results from the second and third phases of the study based mainly on the views of the nurse managers | ||||
| Method / Issue: In order to get a holistic view, a multi methods evaluation was conducted. This consisted of firstly collection and analysis of routinely collected data from admission books at casualty, admission wards and in-patient wards. The purpose of this was to establish the level of triage at each stage of admissions process. Secondly in-depth interviews were conducted with nursing and medical managers of casualty, admission wards and in-patient wards. At the third stage observations of the process of decision making in the three wards were done periodically during different shifts including day, night and on weekends. The last phase which is to be undertaken in future, is going to have in-depth interviews with a small sample of patients and their family members to find out their experience of the health services received. | ||||
| Results / Comments: Various studies were conducted and support literature amongst others Schneider (2005), demonstrated that health providers are under enormous pressure both from the communities they serve and the health system. Communities expect them to perform miracles by attending and healing them as soon as they walk into the hospital. The health authorities, responsible for the management of the facility expect the same but are not providing necessary resources for the provision of services, including toilet paper. This has resulted in strained relations with doctors, patients and the community. Because of this strain, nurses and their managers have developed a sheath of protection where they make-do with whatever resources they have. They have developed a distance between themselves and everybody else who seems to be getting their way of delivering services. They feel that the community / patients do not respect them as much as they used to in the olden days. This has lead to a majority of them, especially the older nurse managers who have been in the facility since apartheid days; feel despondent about the future of nursing in South Africa. An observation that impact on moral and policy monitoring by responsible health implementing Government agencies . | ||||
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